San Francisco Fed Picks Mary Daly as President -- Update
15 September 2018 - 5:45AM
Dow Jones News
By Michael S. Derby
The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco said Friday that Mary
Daly, its research director, will become its new president on Oct.
1.
She will succeed John Williams, who helmed the institution from
2011 until leaving earlier this year to become president of the New
York Fed.
Ms. Daly, 55 years old, has worked at the San Francisco Fed
since 1996, starting out as a staff economist before rising through
the ranks, becoming research director in 2017. She has focused her
work on labor-market issues, a timely interest as Fed policy makers
struggle to understand why a strong job market hasn't spurred
better wage gains and higher rates of inflation.
She "is one of our nation's leading authorities on labor market
dynamics, " Alex Mehran, chairman of the San Francisco Fed board of
directors, said in a statement announcing the selection. "Her
research in this area reflects her deep commitment to understanding
the impacts of monetary and fiscal policy on communities and
businesses at a local, regional and national level."
With Ms. Daly's promotion, three of the 12 regional Fed banks
will be led by women. One of three Fed governors is female. The
Atlanta Fed's president is the first ever African-American regional
bank president in the central bank's century of existence.
Ms. Daly earned a Ph.D. in economics from Syracuse University in
1994. She got her master's degree at the University of Illinois
Urbana--Champaign in 1987 and her bachelor's at the University of
Missouri-Kansas City in 1985.
She has been a frequent public speaker and writer on economic
issues, but her monetary-policy views aren't well known. She will
become bank president as the Fed is gradually raising short-term
interest rates amid an active debate over how far to lift them.
Ms. Daly will vote at the interest-rate-setting Federal Open
Market Committee meetings this year once she takes office, and will
regain that status in 2021 because of the central bank's rotation
system.
The San Francisco Fed job paid $476,100 last year, according to
the central bank's 2017 annual report.
Ms. Daly's journey to the top of her profession didn't follow
the same path as that of many of her colleagues. She told the St.
Louis Fed in a podcast earlier this year she had a tough start to
life that led to her living on her own as a teenager and dropping
out of high school. She earned a GED and then went to college. She
started out studying psychology.
"I'm a roundabout person, apparently, a crooked-path kind of
person," Ms. Daly said in a transcript of the podcast.
She added in the podcast, "I'm just fundamentally interested in
how monetary policy interacts with people's lives, and importantly,
I think about myself as a macro labor economist who thinks about
the macroeconomy and monetary policy and how we achieve the dual
mandate, which is low and stable prices and full employment."
She noted she has a special affinity for those outside the
majority. "I'm openly gay. I'm female" and come from a lower-income
family, Ms. Daly said. "I don't think I've ever felt like I was in
the majority." That experience has caused her to question things
and consider other viewpoints, she said.
Colleagues said Ms. Daly has played important roles seeking to
promote diversity within the Fed system and the economics
profession, which remains dominated by white men.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal in April, Ms. Daly
said improving diversity within the Fed system also meant taking a
broader focus to recruitment efforts beyond race and gender.
"It means making sure our people don't all come from Stanford,
Harvard and Berkeley," she said. "I've seen so many people who
didn't have a pedigree background who have been able to step up and
make contributions here."
The San Francisco Fed said it cast a wide net in its search for
president, initially identifying about 280 potential hires. It
interviewed 12 candidates in August, and the board selected Ms.
Daly as its preferred hire on Wednesday. She was approved by the
Fed board a day later.
--Nick Timiraos contributed to this article.
Write to Michael S. Derby at michael.derby@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 14, 2018 15:30 ET (19:30 GMT)
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