Fed Nominee Blocked By GOP Senator As Unqualified Just Received The Nobel Prize

The Nobel Committee may think a lot about MIT economist Peter Diamond, but he is currently blocked as a nominee for the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve. Sen. Richard Shelby has objected that Diamond is not qualified for the Board because his specialty is not in monetary policy.

The 2010 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science was awarded on Monday to Peter A. Diamond, Dale T. Mortensen and Christopher A Pissarides for their work on labor markets and other markets where buyers and sellers have difficulty finding each other.

What is curious about the hold on Diamond’s nomination is that three of the five board members are not specialists in monetary economics and one of the Bush appointees did not even have an advanced economics degree.

Source: Washington Monthly