Biden to nominate economist Shambaugh as U.S. Treasury's int'l chief

[February 26, 2022]  By David Lawder

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden will nominate Jay Shambaugh, a George Washington University professor and former Obama administration economic adviser, as the U.S. Treasury's next undersecretary for international affairs, the White House said on Friday.

Biden also will nominate William Duncan as ambassador to El Salvador and Lesslie Viguerie as ambassador to the Kyrgyz Republic, the White House said. Both are career Foreign Service officers.

If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Shambaugh, an expert in international monetary and exchange rate policy, will fill a long-vacant post as the Treasury's top financial diplomat, working to coordinate economic policy with foreign governments.

Andy Baukol, a Treasury career assistant secretary, has been serving as acting undersecretary and leading Treasury's negotiations in the G7 and G20 groupings of major economies.

David Lipton, a senior Treasury adviser and former No. 2 official at the International Monetary Fund, also has been helping to guide Treasury's international policies for the past year.

Shambaugh's nomination comes as the administration seeks to rally international support for stiff financial sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine and coordinate policies to sustain the COVID-19 recovery and fight inflation.

As undersecretary for international affairs, Shambaugh would be the Treasury's point person for relations with China and oversee the Treasury's dominant shareholdings in the IMF and the World Bank, which will play significant roles in the aftermath of the Ukraine conflict.

Signage is seen at the United States Department of the Treasury headquarters in Washington, D.C., U.S., August 29, 2020. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly

Shambaugh served as a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers from 2015 to 2017 during the Obama administration and previously served on the CEA staff as senior economist for international economics and chief economist. He served on the Biden administration's CEA transition team.

As a tenured professor of economics and international affairs at George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs since 2013, Shambaugh's research has focused on the interaction of exchange rate regimes with monetary policy, capital flows and trade flows, according to his website.

Michael Klein, a Tufts University international economic affairs professor who taught Shambaugh in the 1990s, said his former student will bring rigorous analysis to the job.

"He does very careful empirical work, asking fundamental questions," said Klein, who wrote a 2009 book with Shambaugh.

From 2017 to 2020, Shambaugh also led the Brookings Institution's Hamilton Project, a grouping of academics and business leaders that promotes broader participation in economic growth. He holds a doctorate in economics from the University of California-Berkeley.

(Reporting by David Lawder; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, David Gregorio and Cynthia Osterman© 2022 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.]  This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.  Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.