Laurence Meyer

Laurence Meyer (born March 8, 1944) is an economist and was a United States Federal Reserve System governor from June 1996 to January 2002.

Meyer received a B.A. (magna cum laude) from Yale University in 1965 and a Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1970. He then taught at Washington University in St. Louis for 27 years. Meyer also ran an economic consulting firm, Laurence H. Meyer and Associates, with two former students. After he moved to the Fed, he sold his interest in the firm and it renamed itself Macroeconomic Advisers. He won several economic forecasting awards while running the company.

He was nominated to the Fed by President Bill Clinton along with Alice Rivlin in 1996. At the Fed, Meyer was one of the Governors most ready to raise interest rates, because he believed that the economy was operating near full capacity, and especially that employment was near the non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment, or the rate that would cause inflation. Alan Greenspan, the Chairman at that time, was one of the leaders of the idea that improved productivity would allow the Fed to keep interest rates low without causing inflation.

After leaving the Fed, Meyer became a Distinguished Scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He also founded LH Meyer, Inc.

Publications

• Meyer, Laurence (2004). A Term at the Fed : An Insider's View. Collins. ISBN 0-06-054270-5. 

External links

• Meyer's speech "Come with me to the FOMC"
• Macroeconomic Advisers biography
• CSIS biography
• Interview with the Minneapolis Fed
• Statements and Speeches of Laurence H. Meyer