Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh on Thursday named the people who will lead the five task forces charged with proposing ways to reshape and improve operations at the central bank, many of whom are experienced business leaders and former policymakers from around the globe.
Warsh announced in June he was in the process of forming task forces to study the Fed communications, the balance sheet, economic data usage, productivity and jobs, and inflation.
The Fed on Thursday said three outside leaders have been selected to lead each committee, which will operate independently from the Federal Open Market Committee but receive support from the central bank's staff. Those selected, many of whom are considered top experts in their fields, span a broad range of expertise and experience.
"The U.S. economy has changed significantly over the last generation, and never more so than right now. Each task force will carefully consider whether policymakers' means and methods, analytical tools and policy approaches can be improved upon," Warsh said in statement Thursday. "The goal is straightforward: to ensure the Fed is best positioned to achieve our objectives in this consequential time."
For the task force charged with evaluating productivity and labor conditions, an area of particular interest to Warsh, the new chairman tapped several key experts involved in the technology sector. Leading the task force, which will assess the economic impact of new general-purpose technologies such as artificial intelligence, is Marc Andreessen, co-founder and general partner of Andreessen Horowitz; Charles Jones, professor of economics at Stanford University and currently on leave at Anthropic; and Asha Sharma, executive vice president and XBOX CEO at Microsoft Corp.
The task force on inflation, which will review how the Fed assesses and responds to price growth drivers, will be led by Greg Mankiw, professor of economics at Harvard University and former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President George W. Bush; Thomas Sargent, a Nobel laureate and a professor of economics at New York University; and William White, senior fellow, C.D. Howe Institute and a former economic advisor at the Bank for International Settlements.
The task force on communications will be led by Peter R. Fisher, professor at the University of Washington's Foster School of Business; Arminio Fraga, founder and chairman of Gávea Investimentos and former president of the Central Bank of Brazil; and Mervyn King, former governor of the Bank of England. Warsh said the committee will focus on reviewing how the Fed conveys policy deliberations and decisions amid uncertainty.
The balance sheet policy task force will examine the costs, benefits, and institutional implications of the Fed's regime. It will be headed up by Karen Dynan, professor of economics at Harvard University; Raghuram Rajan, professor of finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a former governor of the Reserve Bank of India; and Jeremy Stein, professor of economics, Harvard University and former governor of the Fed.
Warsh said during an appearance at the European Central Bank's annual conference last week that while it was "no secret" that he thinks the balance sheet should be smaller, he didn't want to prejudge any recommendations from the task force. The Fed chairman also stressed that no changes to the balance sheet will be made without advanced warning.
"If there's a change in balance sheet policy...those decisions will be well-deliberated publicly, well understood, and will not be implemented until financial markets have come to understand what those are," he said.
The task force focused on data is charged with improving the quality and timeliness of economic indicators that the Fed uses. Warsh has been critical of the economic data produced by U.S. statistical agencies, particularly the datasets produced using surveys that have suffered from lower response rates in recent years. During the post-FOMC press conference in June, Warsh noted that most of the data used by U.S. central bankers and other government officials is based on "old-fashioned survey methods."
The effort to improve the statistical data used by the Fed will be led by Raj Chetty, professor of economics at Harvard University; Doug McMillon, former president and CEO of Walmart; and Kevin Murphy, professor of economics at University of Chicago.
Warsh has expressed high expectations for what this particular task force will be able to achieve, noting last week that he's hoping the team will be able to recommend and produce economic data sources that help Fed officials make better decisions.
"My hope, my aspiration, is that 9 [to] 12 months from now, we're going to be using new technologies to understand what's happening in the real economy in a contemporaneous, real-time way that positions us as central makers to make better decisions -- that we're no longer gonna have to rely solely on data that we get from government agencies with mis-measurement problems, that have surveys that are no longer relevant, " Warsh said.
The Fed noted the goal of each task force was to "follow the evidence, provide candid feedback, and produce rigorous findings" for the FOMC.
"I am honored that the best minds from a range of disciplines have agreed to work with us to sharpen our performance as an institution," Warsh added.
Write to Megan Leonhardt at megan.leonhardt@barrons.com
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
July 09, 2026 15:46 ET (19:46 GMT)
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