US President Barack Obama will appoint Princeton University professor Alan Krueger as chief economist of the White House. If he is confirmed by the Senate, Krueger, a labor economist, will provide a voice in the administration for more aggressive government action to reduce unemployment, especially in the long term.
Krueger, 50, returned to Princeton a year ago after serving as assistant to the Treasury secretary for economic policy during the first two years of the Obama administration. He will succeed Austan Goolsbee, who left his post earlier this month to return to teaching at the University of Chicago.
Krueger has been at Princeton since 1987, when he received his Phd in economics from Harvard. He played his part as chief economist in the Labor Department during the Clinton administration.
The work he has done in the academy ranges from attempts to explain why employment growth was not strong in the 2000s, to the discovery that increases in the minimum wage do not depress employment and work that shows how terrorists often belong to the middle and educated sections of the population.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said "given his knowledge of labor economics, he is the right choice to lead the board of economists at this historic juncture."
Source: Wall Street Journal
