Stanley Fischer

Stanley Fischer to the Fed? by Scott Sumner

...And here are some positives:

Fischer, who holds both U.S. and Israeli citizenship and lives in New York, stepped down as governor of the Bank ofIsrael on June 30, midway through his second five-year term. He was credited with helping his nation weather the global economic crisis better than most developed countries. 

. . .

Fischer earned a reputation as a trailblazer as the first central banker to cut interest rates in 2008 at the start of the global crisis and the first to raise them the following year in response to signs of a financial recovery.

I don’t quite understand that last comment, as the Fed was already cutting rates in 2007. Does anyone know what they mean? In any case, Israel came closer to NGDP level targeting that anyone else that I am aware of, with the possible exception of Australia. So if Fischer is a discretionary policymaker, at least he’s a talented discretionary policymaker.

I wish Obama had picked Christy Romer, but I certainly support Fischer. He’s highly talented and a mainstream monetary economist. Bernanke and Draghi (and many other famous economists) were his students. 

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