When Senate Republicans used an obscure procedural rule to block Peter Diamond’s nomination to the Federal Reserve’s board of governors in August, Alabama’s Richard Shelby explained that it was because Diamond didn’t have broad enough macroeconomic experience. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences seems to disagree.
Last month it awarded the 70-year-old MIT professor (and two others) the Nobel Prize in economic sciences. The Academy cited Diamond for his groundbreaking work on how regulation and economic policy affect the job market, a seemingly pertinent subject for a Fed nominee.
And Diamond’s economic compass is broader still. He has written two books on pensions, arriving at recommendations that would cause a Frenchman (and many U.S. Democrats) to mount the barricades: lower benefits, increase contribution rates and raise the retirement age.
Still, after learning that Diamond had won the Nobel, Senator Shelby retorted that the Royal Swedish Academy “does not determine who is qualified” to serve on the Fed board.
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