President Donald Trump has nominated Christopher Phelan, an economics professor at the University of Minnesota, to serve as the chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers (CEA). This key appointment, if confirmed by the Senate, would place Phelan at the forefront of economic analysis for the administration's policies. He would succeed Stephen Miran, a Harvard-trained economist who moved to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors last September, with Pierre Yared having served as acting chairman in the interim before returning to Columbia University.
Phelan has a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Chicago and previously worked as a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. White House spokesman Kush Desai lauded Phelan as a "key addition" to what he described as "the best and most experienced economic team in modern history." Phelan's background includes an undergraduate degree from Duke University and a long tenure at the University of Minnesota's Department of Economics.
Notably, Phelan has expressed unconventional views on banking, particularly criticizing fractional reserve banking, calling it "problematic" and arguing in a 2012 paper that "banks are worse than useless." He, along with co-author V. V. Chari, has suggested a radical overhaul of the banking system, advocating for restrictions on institutions that issue large amounts of short-term debt and a broadening of payment systems to include entities like stock and bond mutual fund companies. While Phelan would not have direct power to implement these changes as CEA chair, his ideas could influence the president's perspective on financial system overhauls, especially amidst growing interest in stablecoin and crypto companies.
