Obama to Tap Berkeley Prof to Chair Council of Economic Advisers
November 24, 2008 6:44 AM
From Jake Tapper and George Stephanopoulos:
ABC News has learned that President-elect Obama had tapped University of California -Berkeley economics professor Christina Romer to be the chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, an office within the Executive Office of the President.
Romer, a widely respected economist with an expertise on the U.S. economy, will be one of the key economic advisers whom Mr. Obama will introduce to the nation this morning, along with New York Federal Reserve president Timothy Geithner, tapped to be Obama's nominee for Secretary of the Treasury, and former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, who will serve as the director of the National Economic Council.
Romer and her husband David, also an economist at Berkeley, are members of the Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research, which decides when a recession has officially started or ended.
One highly relevant area of their expertise -- how tax cuts can help stimulate economic growth.
The Council of Economic Advisers is charged with analyzing and interpreting economic developments, appraising programs and activities of the Government, and formulating and recommending national economic policy to promote employment, production, and purchasing power.
Previous chairs of the Council of Economic Advisers include Ben Bernanke, Greg Mankiw, Laura D'Andrea Tyson, and Alan Greenspan.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/11/obama-to-tap-be.html