UC Berkeley economist named to Obama team
Christina Romer is chosen by President-elect Barack Obama to head his Council of Economic Advisors. She is an expert on the Great Depression and monetary policy.
UC Berkeley economics professor Christina D. Romer, named Monday by President-elect Barack Obama to head his Council of Economic Advisors, is an expert on the Great Depression and monetary policy who is respected for her keen analytical skills, friends and colleagues say.
Associates praised Romer, 49, as a knowledgeable and tough-minded expert who can be expected to work well with other members of Obama's team as his administration attempts to overcome the country's economic crisis.
"She's a great choice," said Harvard University economics professor Gregory Mankiw, who chaired the economic council from 2003 to 2005 and is a longtime friend of Romer's. "She's a very good economist, a great public speaker, and . . . brings to the table an understanding of history that most economists don't have."
Nobel Prize-winning UC Berkeley economics professor Daniel McFadden, who taught Romer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the early 1980s, also applauded her selection. He said her historical perspective will be of great help as the Obama administration tries to halt the nation's economic slide.
"She understands in great detail what went wrong in the 1930s and what government policies were ineffective," McFadden said. "I would describe her as a modern macro-economist who understands the power and the limits of the government to affect the economy. She has a sophisticated and nuanced view of what economic policy would do."
Romer's husband, David, also is an economics professor at UC Berkeley and the two have long worked closely together, often co-authoring research papers. David Romer, like his wife, is a specialist in monetary policy. They have taught at the university for 20 years.
"They are a very close-knit team and work together on their research," McFadden said. "President Obama is getting two for the price of one."
Christina Romer and her husband have both been consultants to Obama's economic team. Other UC Berkeley scholars on the president-elect's transition team include Laura D'Andrea Tyson, former dean of the Haas School of Business who served as chairwoman of the Council of Economic Advisors under Clinton, and public policy professor Robert Reich, former Clinton Labor secretary.
Friends and colleagues said they expected Christina Romer to work cooperatively with former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, who will take another key economic post in the new administration, becoming head of Obama's National Economic Council.
