Retired Fed official joins economics faculty

William Poole, former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, has been appointed a distinguished scholar in residence at the University.

“We are very pleased that Bill Poole has decided to join the Lerner College of Business and Economics as a distinguished scholar in residence in the Department of Economics,” says Conrado (Bobby) M. Gempesaw, dean of the college. “He has been one of the more prominent and influential voices in setting our nation’s monetary policies during the past decade. Our students and faculty are very fortunate to be given the opportunity to interact with Bill Poole.”

Poole, who retired in March from the Federal Reserve after serving 10 years as St. Louis Fed president, will join UD this fall.

The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis is one of 12 regional Reserve Banks that, along with the Board of Governors in Washington, D.C., constitute the Federal Reserve System. As the nation’s central bank, the Fed is responsible for conducting monetary policy, supervising banks and operating the nation’s payments mechanism.
“Bill Poole brings an amazing blend of academic and policy experience to our program,” says Saul Hoffman, professor and chairperson of the Department of Economics. “He spent a decade as one of the most influential policymakers in the entire Federal Reserve System….We look forward to having him work with our students across the curriculum and our faculty. He is full of ideas, energy and enthusiasm.”

Eleanor Craig, associate chairperson and associate professor of economics, says Poole is an excellent speaker who has lectured at UD several times.

“One of the things he’s well known for as a member of the Federal Open Market Committee is promoting transparency of Federal Reserve actions,” Craig says. “He feels that if the public understands what the Fed’s actions are and why those steps were taken, the economy and financial markets can react with more knowledge about the actual state of the business cycle and respond appropriately.”

Poole is a Wilmington, Del., native who earned a master’s degree in business administration and a doctorate in economics from the University of Chicago.

He began his career at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in 1964 and worked as a senior economist there from 1969-74. In 1974, he joined the faculty at Brown University, twice served as chairman of the economics department and for five years directed the university’s Center for the Study of Financial Markets and Institutions.

Poole was the Herbert H. Goldberger Professor of Economics at Brown when he joined the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis in March 1998 as the 11th chief executive of the Eighth District Federal Reserve Bank at St. Louis.
He has served as a visiting scholar and an adviser at many institutions, including the Brookings Panel on Economic Activity, the Council of Economic Advisers in the first Reagan administration, the Academic Advisory Panels of the Federal Reserve Banks of New York and Boston and the Congressional Budget Office Panel of Economic Advisers.

Poole wrote Money and the Economy: A Monetarist View, published in 1978, as well as many scholarly papers in professional journals.