Mishkin Is Tapped for Fed Board

An excellent choice:

WSJ.com - Mishkin Is Tapped for Fed Board: By HENRY J. PULIZZI June 30, 2006 4:09 p.m.: President Bush Friday nominated Columbia University professor Frederic S. Mishkin to be a member of the Federal Reserve's board of governors, adding another expert on inflation targeting to the central bank's leadership. If confirmed by the Senate, Mr. Miskin will fill the seat vacated by Roger Ferguson, who resigned in April, and serve the remainder of a 14-year term expiring in January 2014.

Mr. Mishkin, currently the Alfred Lerner Professor of Banking and Financial Institutions at Columbia University's Graduate School of Business, has a well-established relationship with Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke. In 1999, the two men, along with two others, authored a book on inflation targeting. The choice of Mr. Mishkin is likely to heighten speculation that the central bank may eventually embrace the strategy. Inflation targeting involves setting an explicit, numerical target for the inflation rate that the central bank tries to achieve.

"We like to joke that Ben Bernanke wrote the book on inflation targeting, but actually he co-wrote it with Frederic Mishkin," said Lehman Brothers economist John Shin. Mr. Bernanke has supported setting an explicit inflation objective, an idea that former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan feared would limit the central bank's flexibility...