The Ag Committee is quite different from the Banking Committee. I don't think my prior experience helped that much. Typically your specializations are listed as options, commodities futures, financial management and economic theory of regulation. Yes, I think that's fair. In addition, I taught securities and portfolio management and did research in the private pension area.
Financial intermediation is another teaching and research area.
More recently, I am probably associated with the derivative markets. So I don't think I was professionally associated with Fed activity through my research, but rather came in contact with the Fed more in a secondary way through my teaching and research endeavors. I have somewhat mixed views about that reputation because the important thing is to have not necessarily the minimum regulation but the right regulation. One doesn't want to have unnecessary paperwork, so I think the emphasis should be in eliminating unnecessary regulation, but retaining or implementing appropriate regulation. In fact, I think that the right kind of regulation is helpful to the markets.