Pieces of Eight: News Bulletins from the Eighth Federal Reserve District

St. Louis Fed Gets New President

The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis has named William Poole as its new president, effective March 23. He replaces Thomas C. Melzer, who resigned from the bank this past January after more than 12 years as president.

Poole joins the St. Louis Fed after a 24-year career at Brown University in Providence, R.I., where he was the Herbert H. Goldberger Professor of Economics. He has twice served as chairman of the economics department at Brown and was director of the university's Center for the Study of Financial Markets and Institutions for five years. He also was a member of the Shadow Open Market Committee, which is a group of business and academic economists who meet twice a year to discuss current macroeconomic policy issues. The committee presents its analysis to the general public.

Poole began his career in 1964 at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, where he worked as a senior economist until 1974. He was a member of the Reagan administrations' Council of Economic Advisors from 1982 to 1985. Poole has also served as a member of the Academic Advisory Panels of the Federal Reserve Banks of New York and Boston.

Poole holds Ph.D. and M.B.A. degrees from the University of Chicago and a bachelor of arts degree from Swarthmore College. In 1989, Swarthmore honored Poole with the Doctor of Laws degree.

And the survey says...

At the end of last year, we surveyed a segment of Regional Economist readers to get a better idea as to who you are and what you want out of the publication. Overall, we received a lot of positive feedback about RE, and the vast majority of you are happy with the length of the articles, the writing style employed and the balance between text and art.

Who You Are

More than 50 percent of you have an undergraduate or graduate degree in economics or business. About a third of you are employed in banking or other financial services. Other heavily represented industries include: education/research (20.4 percent) and nonfinancial business (18.6 percent).

What You Want

More than 90 percent of you expressed moderate to strong interest in articles about monetary policy and inflation. Other popular topics include: national public policy issues like social security (88 percent), international economic issues (78.2 percent) and banking and financial markets (76.6 percent).

Thanks to everyone who took the time to respond.

Fed Funds