‘Critical voice.’ Davidson economics professor confirmed for top job at Federal Reserve
%20(1).JPG "Davidson College administrator and professor Philip Jefferson has been confirmed as a member of the Federal Reserve’s board of governors. His term will last 14 years.")
A Charlotte-area economist has been officially approved for a top job at the Federal Reserve.
The U.S. Senate voted to confirm Davidson College professor and administrator Philip Jefferson to the Fed on Wednesday. His term as a governor on the central bank’s board will last 14 years.
As a governor and member of the Federal Open Market Committee, he’ll help set U.S. monetary policy, including adjusting interest rates to curb inflation and promote economic stability.
Jefferson had bipartisan support, in a 91-7 vote. He is the fourth Black man to serve as a Fed governor.
Who is Philip Jefferson?
Prior to joining Davidson in 2019, Jefferson held an endowed professorship at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. He’s also taught at Columbia University and the University of Virginia, and previously worked as an economist for the Fed’s Board of Governors in Washington and for the Federal Reserve Bank.
At Davidson, he was the vice president for academic affairs and dean of faculty, in addition to holding an endowed economics professorship there. North of Charlotte, Davidson is a small, private liberal arts college founded in 1837. It has about 2,000 students.
Jefferson has studied subjects like poverty and unemployment, and has written a book for non-economists, “Poverty: A Very Short Introduction.”
He is one of the country’s “leading thinkers on the economics of poverty,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown, chair of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, in a statement.
Jefferson will be a “critical voice” on the Fed’s board as it tackles inflation and other issues, Brown said in a news release.
Now that he’s been confirmed, Jefferson will need to resign from his position at Davidson in the near future, the college confirmed. The school has an interim transition plan in place, it said, to be led by President-elect Douglas Hicks.
Diversity and fighting inflation at the Fed
Alongside Jefferson, President Joe Biden also nominated Lisa Cook, an economist at Michigan State University.
Cook was also confirmed to the board yesterday. She is the the first Black woman to serve on the Fed’s board of governors. It’s also the first time that two Black governors have served on the Fed simultaneously.
In recent months, leaders at the Fed have been focused on curbing inflation. The open market committee raised rates for the first time in four years in March, and hiked them again last week.
The new governors are unlikely to slow the pace of rising interest rates at the Fed, the Wall Street Journal reported. At his confirmation hearing, Jefferson said the Fed must take steps to reel in rising prices.
This story was originally published May 12, 2022 at 4:39 PM.
