Biden sends 3 Fed Board nominations to Senate

Three nominations to serve on the Federal Reserve Board, including one to fill the now-vacant vice chair of supervision seat, were sent by the White House Thursday to the full Senate and await further action.

If confirmed, the three nominated by President Joe Biden (D) – Sarah Bloom Raskin (a previous Fed Board member), Lisa DeNell Cook, and Philip Nathan Jefferson – would give the Fed Board its full complement of seven members.

All three nominees await action of the Senate Banking Committee. Following is bio info from the White House for each:

Sarah Bloom Raskin

Raskin is nominated to fill the unexpired term, which ends Jan. 31, 2032, of Randal Quarles, who resigned last month; and to a four-year term as the Fed’s vice chair for supervision. She would be the Fed’s second-ever vice chair for supervision, succeeding Quarles here as well. (Quarles’ term in that post expired Oct. 13, 2021.)

Having served previously as a deputy Treasury secretary and as a Fed Board member (from October 2010 to mid-March 2014), Raskin has also served as Maryland’s commissioner of financial regulation. She currently is the Colin W. Brown Distinguished Professor of the Practice of Law at the Duke University School of Law as well as the board of trustees of Amherst College. She received her B.A. in economics from Amherst College (Phi Beta Kappa; magna cum laude), and her J.D. from Harvard Law School.

Lisa DeNell Cook

Cook, of Michigan, is nominated to fill the unexpired term of Janet Yellen, which would allow Cook to remain a Fed Board governor through Jan. 31, 2024. Cook is a Professor of Economics and International Relations at Michigan State University. She is also on the Board of Editors of the Journal of Economic Literature; has served at the White House Council of Economic Advisers under President Obama; and had visiting appointments at the National Bureau of Economic Research, the University of Michigan, and the Federal Reserve Banks of New York, Chicago, Minneapolis, and Philadelphia. She serves on the Advisory Boards of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago (Academic Advisory Council).

Among her other accomplishments, Cook was the first Marshall Scholar from Spelman College and received a second B.A. in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from Oxford University. She earned a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Berkeley with fields in macroeconomics and international economics. She has also served as an adjunct professor at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, Deputy Director for Africa Research at the Center for International Development at Harvard University, and a National Fellow at Stanford University.

Philip N. Jefferson

Jefferson is Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of Faculty and the Paul B. Freeland Professor of Economics at Davidson College. He was a Federal Reserve economist and held visiting appointments at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the University of California at Berkeley, and the Fed Board. He is currently on the Vassar College Board of Trustees, the Board of Advisors of the Opportunity and Inclusive Growth Institute at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis and is a past president of the National Economic Association.

Jefferson is a Faculty Affiliate of the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He previously served as chair of the Economics department at Swarthmore College, where he was the Centennial Professor of Economics. He served as a director of the Eastern Economic Association and as a member of the governing council of the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research at the University of Michigan. Philip served on the Swarthmore Borough Council, Delaware County, Pennsylvania. He holds a B.A. in economics from Vassar College and a PhD and a MA in economics from the University of Virginia.

President Biden Nominates Sarah Bloom Raskin to Serve as Vice Chair for Supervision of the Federal Reserve, and Lisa Cook and Philip Jefferson to Serve as Governors