informative, verifiable and not vulnerable to manipulation? if you manage to come up with one, how do you migrate the trillions of dollars of existing contracts to the new standard? the u. s. unemployment rate has declined more sharply than one might expect given the economy ’ s growth rate over the past few years. is this permanent or will it reverse if the economy continues to grow and the pressure on labor market resources increases in the coming years? how does one end “ too big to fail ” for large global firms operating across different jurisdictions? the list goes on and on. there is plenty to work on and think about. finally, let me take up one other question that stan has posed : do i think you need to be an economist to be the president at the new york fed? i don ’ t think so. if you look at the past five presidents – volcker, corrigan, mcdonough, geithner, and myself, some have been economists, some haven ’ t. yet i think all my predecessors have been very effective. i think there are other attributes that are more important than being an economist : 1 ) an analytical orientation ; 2 ) the ability to synthesize a broad range of material so as to understand the interactions of markets, financial institutions, and regulatory and macroeconomic policy ; 3 ) open - mindedness and pragmatism – the world is complicated and ever changing ; and 4 ) the ability to lead – that means identifying the key issues and motivating people to do their best work in order to develop new insights and approaches. having an economics background probably helps, especially on the analytics side, but, in my view, is by no means necessary and certainly not sufficient. one point on which i am certain is that regardless of the background of the president, having a very strong research group is essential. thanks for your kind attention. bis central bankers ’ speeches

do business here. third, we are the fiscal agent for the treasury and conduct the treasury debt auctions on their behalf. additionally, we are responsible for fedwire, which along with clearing house interbank payments system ( chips ), is one of the two large - dollar, real - time payment systems in the u. s. fourth, we have a unique set of international duties. we provide banking services to foreign central banks, including investment of reserves and administration of foreign exchange swap lines. we also have a seat at the table in basel with respect to the activities of the bank for international settlements ( bis ), its various committees, and the financial stability board ( fsb ). as i noted earlier, economics is a critical discipline at the new york fed. the new york fed economists are not just theoreticians. most have a strong empirical orientation and work very eric rosengren, president of the federal reserve bank of boston ; charles plosser, president of the federal reserve bank of philadelphia ; and narayana kocherlakota, president of the federal reserve bank of minneapolis. bis central bankers ’ speeches closely with those in the bank that are responsible for the execution of policy – be it with respect to monetary policy, financial stability, supervision or payments services. what ’ s special to me about the bank is how the economists and non - economists work together to develop practical policy solutions to real - world problems and then implement those policies effectively. the breadth of activities at the new york fed means that our economists contribute to policy in many different ways, working closely with other areas of the bank including those who execute on our supervision, monetary policy, and payments responsibilities. we have about 60 ph. d. economists in our research group. but we also have many more in other areas of the bank, such as part of our open markets desk, in our supervision group, and in our risk functions. in fact, many of those with economics ph. d. s elsewhere in the bank started their careers at the bank in the research group. they moved to other areas of the bank as their interests evolved and they became less focused on research and more focused on policy development. this movement of economists throughout the organization has helped build a deep reservoir of human capital within the bank and has fostered close collaboration between research and other areas of the bank. our model with respect to attracting economists into our research group is to hire people with strong research skills, with the highest academic credentials and who already have