HONOLULU — A vacationing President Barack Obama on Tuesday nominated a Harvard University professor and a former Treasury official under President George H.W. Bush — a Democrat and a Republican — to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.
In a statement from Hawaii, where he was vacationing with his family, Obama praised Jeremy Stein and Jerome Powell for agreeing to serve at a critical moment for the U.S. economy.
Stein is an economics professor at Harvard. His research focuses on the behavior of stock prices, corporate investment and financial regulation. He previously served in the Obama administration as a senior adviser to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.
Powell is a visiting scholar at the Washington-based Bipartisan Policy Center, where he has focused on federal and state fiscal issues.
In nominating both a Democrat and Republican to the seven-member Fed board, Obama could be trying to head off a confirmation fight in the Senate. The Associated Press
