Two Women Economic Scholars Appointed to Top Government Posts

Sandra Black, who holds the Audre and Bernard Rapoport Centennial Chair in Economic and Public Affairs at the University of Texas, has been appointed by President Obama to serve as one of three members of the Council of Economic Advisers. Professor Black’s research has focused on education and income, intergenerational economic mobility, and on how racial and socioeconomic factors impact college admissions.

Jason Abrevaya, chair of the economics department at the University of Texas said that Professor Black “is one of the world’s leading experts in the areas of labor economics and the economics of education, and her expertise will be invaluable in her role advising the president. Her outstanding academic research has consistently been characterized by its attention to detail, its objectivity and an overriding desire to use data carefully to answer important policy questions.”

Before joining the faculty at the University of Texas in 2010, Dr. Black taught economics at the University of California, Los Angeles for nine years. Earlier, she served as an economist for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Professor Black is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley and holds a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University.

Kathryn M.E. Dominguez, a professor of economics and public policy at the University of Michigan, has been appointed by President Obama to serve on the seven-member board of governors of the Federal Reserve System.

Professor Dominguez also serves as a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and as associate dean for academic affairs at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. She joined the university’s faculty in 1997.

Mark Schlissel, president of the University of Michigan, said that “Professor Dominguez is a renowned scholar and teacher with a well-deserved reputation as one of the world’s leading experts on global financial markets. I am pleased and proud that she’s been invited to join the nation’s top monetary policymaking body.”

Professor Dominguez’s current research examines the reasons for the U.S. economy’s slow recovery from the Great Recession. She is the author of Exchange Rate Efficiency and the Behavior of International Asset Markets (Routledge, 2014).

Dr. Dominguez is a graduate of Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. She holds a Ph.D. in economics from Yale University.