Stein Nominated to Federal Reserve Board of Governors

Economics Professor Jeremy C. Stein will be nominated to fill one of two vacant spots on the seven-member Federal Reserve Board of Governors, the White House announced on Tuesday.

Stein, whose work has focused mainly on financial regulation, risk management, and monetary policy, has argued for higher regulation for banks, advocating for higher capital standards. President Barack Obama nominated Stein, a Democrat, with Republican Jerome H. “Jay” Powell, who served as a Treasury official under the George H.W. Bush administration.

“Jeremy Stein is a brilliant economist who understands monetary issues extremely well. He will be a great addition to the Board,” Economics professor Philippe Aghion said. “It’s a good manifestation of bipartisanship that shows goodwill on the part of the Obama administration.”

Aghion added that Stein would serve as a strong bipartisan candidate, maintaining a core Democratic set of ideals but retaining the “trust” of Republican figures.

“He is an uncontroversial figure,” Aghion said.

At Harvard, Stein teaches a series of finance courses, earning sky-high Q Guide ratings. Before coming to Harvard in 2000, he taught at the MIT Sloan School of Management for ten years. He has also taught as an assistant professor of finance at the Harvard Business School from 1987 to 1990.

Though Stein has primarily served as a researcher and policy scholar, he worked with the Obama Administration from February to July of 2009 as an adviser to the Treasury Department and was on the staff of the National Economic Council. Stein, who earned his PhD from M.I.T. in 1986, has also served on the board of the American Finance Association and acted as an advisor for the Federal Reserve of New York since 2006.

If the Senate confirms Stein as a governor to the Federal Reserve Board, he will serve a term that will expire in 2018.

—Staff writer Nikita Kansra can be reached at nkansra01@college.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Sabrina A. Mohamed can be reached at smohamed@college.harvard.edu.