President Bush has nominated economic advisor Ben Bernanke to succeed Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, who will retire January 31, after 18 years at the helm of the Fed.
Bernanke, 51, currently serves as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, and was a member of the board of governors of the Federal Reserve for three years. Prior to that he was chair of the Economics Department at Princeton University from 1996 to 2002.
Bernanke had long been regarded as the front-runner to succeed Greenspan, and is an advocate of greater transparency at the Fed.
Other candidates considered to have been on the short list were R. Glenn Hubbard, a former top advisor to Mr. Bush and an architect of the president's tax cuts, and Martin S. Feldstein, a Harvard University economics professor and president of the National Bureau of Economic Research.
