JOHNSON STATEMENT ON FED AND CEA NOMINEES

WASHINGTON – Today, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Johnson (D-SD) held a hearing to consider one nomination to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, and two nominations to the Council of Economic Advisers.

 

The Committee heard testimony from Dr. Peter Diamond, nominee to the Federal Reserve System Board of Governors, as well as Doctors Katharine Abraham and Carl Shapiro, nominees to the Council of Economic Advisers.

 

“At present, our economy is recovering from one of the worst downturns in its history,” said Chairman Johnson. “We have seen some signs of progress, but for the more than 13 million Americans who are out of work and looking for a job, the recovery cannot come too soon.

 

“Unemployment remains at about 9%, and even with hundreds of thousands of new jobs added every month, it will take years to get back to pre-crisis levels. At the same time, we face daunting long-term budgetary imbalances, strong foreign competition, rising oil prices, and the ever-present need to maintain low inflation. It is for these reasons that we need “all hands on deck” for our nation’s economic policy-making. I am glad that the President has sent us three extremely qualified individuals to fill current vacancies in posts important to our nation’s economic recovery.”

 

 

“Good morning, I call this meeting to order.

 

“Today we consider three nominations. Dr. Peter Diamond has been nominated to become a Member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and Doctors Katharine Abraham and Carl Shapiro have been nominated to be Members of the Council of Economic Advisers.

 

“At present, our economy is recovering from one of the worst downturns in its history. We have seen some signs of progress, but for the more than 13 million Americans who are out of work and looking for a job, the recovery cannot come too soon.

 

“Unemployment remains at about 9%, and even with hundreds of thousands of new jobs added every month, it will take years to get back to pre-crisis levels. At the same time, we face daunting long-term budgetary imbalances, strong foreign competition, rising oil prices, and the ever-present need to maintain low inflation. It is for these reasons that we need “all hands on deck” for our nation’s economic policy-making. I am glad that the President has sent us three extremely qualified individuals to fill current vacancies in posts important to our nation’s economic recovery.

 

“Dr. Peter Diamond is a distinguished economist who has worked on unemployment, economic growth, and the economics of social security and pensions. He has served as President of the American Economic Association and President of the Econometric Society. Since his original nomination in 2010 he was awarded, along with two other economists, the Nobel Prize in Economics.

 

“The models for which Dr. Diamond won the Nobel Prize help us understand the ways in which unemployment, job vacancies, and wages are affected by regulation and economic policy. His “Search” theory has also been used to study questions related to monetary theory, public economics, financial economics, regional economics, and family economics. Sir James Mirrlees, a 1996 Nobel Prize winner in Economics, said of Dr. Diamond: “No economist is smarter…His reasoning is amazingly accurate. The theories and models he uses are defined with the greatest precision. More than most economic theorists, he has always chosen his research topics and questions for their real importance.” Dr. Diamond was reported favorably with bipartisan support by this committee twice in the last session of Congress by votes of 16 to 7.

 

“Dr. Katharine Abraham is a Professor in the Joint Program in Survey Methodology and Faculty Associate in the Population Research Center at the University of Maryland. Dr. Abraham served as the Commissioner for the Bureau of Labor Statistics at the United States Department of Labor from 1993-2001. She joined the University of Maryland in 1987, where she served as a professor of economics, and she also taught at MIT's Sloan School of Management from 1980-1985. Dr. Abraham received her Ph.D. in economics from Harvard in 1982 and her B.A. in economics from Iowa State University in 1976.

 

“Dr. Carl Shapiro is the Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Economics at the Antitrust Division of the United States Department of Justice, where he supervises more than fifty Ph.D. economists in the Antitrust Division’s Economic Analysis Group. Dr. Shapiro is on leave from the University of California at Berkeley, where he is the Transamerica Professor of Business Strategy at the Haas School of Business and a Professor of Economics. He earned his Ph.D. in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1981.

 

“I thank all the nominees for your willingness to serve at the federal level, especially at a time when our country is trying to overcome significant economic challenges.”