By Howard Schneider
WASHINGTON, July 9 (Reuters) – Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh tapped a broad and intellectually diverse group of economists and former central bankers to oversee the five task forces he is establishing to review the U.S. central bank’s operations, covering technical issues like management of its balance sheet as well as forward-leaning ones like the impact of artificial intelligence.
Warsh announced the task forces at the press conference following his first policy meeting as Fed chief on June 16-17.
The central bank on Thursday named the leaders of those groups, which “will operate independently, with a mandate to follow the evidence, provide candid feedback, and produce rigorous findings for the Federal Open Market Committee,” the Fed said in a statement.
The group includes people from across the policy spectrum, with Harvard University economics professor Raj Chetty, a pioneer in the use of alternate and real-time data in analyzing how households and neighborhoods are faring, helping to lead a panel on data, famed tech investor Marc Andreessen as one of three co-leads of a panel on productivity and jobs, and Greg Mankiw, who was chair of the Council of Economic Advisers in the George W. Bush administration, co-leading a task force on inflation.
“The U.S. economy has changed significantly over the last generation, and never more so than right now. Each task force will carefully consider whether policymakers’ means and methods,analytical tools and policy approaches can be improved upon,” Warsh said in a statement. “The goal is straightforward: to ensure the Fed is best positioned to achieve our objectives in this consequential time.”
(Reporting by Howard Schneider; Editing by Paul Simao)
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