The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston said Wednesday that it has chosen Susan M. Collins, an economist and administrator at the University of Michigan, as its next president.
The selection of Collins, who will become the first Black person to serve as president of the Boston Fed, has already been approved by the Fed's governing board. She is only the second Black American to be appointed a president of one of the Fed's 12 regional banks.
Dania Francis, an assistant professor of economics at UMass Boston, said Collins is highly qualified, and that her selection has personal significance as well.
“Identifying as a Black woman and an economist, I think it's incredibly inspiring to see Dr. Collins become the first Black woman and woman of color to lead the Boston Fed,” Francis said. ”It is an inspiration in a profession that has not had as much representation with women, and particularly women of color and especially Black women in the past.”
As president of a regional Federal Reserve bank, Collins will have a vote on the Fed's interest rate decisions this year. And those decisions will be particularly risky as the central bank seeks to tighten credit and combat high inflation without slowing the economy so much as to cause a recession.
Francis said the fed has a dual mandate: to suppress inflation and raise employment. She hopes Collins and the rest of the governing board will bring more attention to unemployment.
“That matters particularly for minority communities,” Francis said, “because ... what may seem like reasonable unemployment numbers in the aggregate really does mask high unemployment rates among some segments of our society, including Black, Hispanic and Indigenous workers.”
Before assuming her role at Michigan, Collins, 63, also taught at Georgetown University and was a senior staff economist on the White House Council of Economic Advisers under President George H.W. Bush.
Collins, who will start July 1, replaces Eric Rosengren, who retired last year after 14 years as president. Rosengren stepped down for health reasons and after he had come under scrutiny for investments he made in real estate funds at the same time that the Fed was buying mortgage-backed bonds to stabilize financial markets.
After graduating at the top of her class from Harvard, Collins earned a Ph.D. in economics from MIT.
“Dr. Collins brings the technical expertise and insight to contribute to policymaking and the leadership ability to head the organization,” said Christina Paxson, president of Brown University and chair of the Boston Fed’s Board of Directors, who led the search for a new president. “She is deeply committed to serving the public, engaging with constituents, and advancing economic stability, opportunity, and prosperity."
While the Boston Fed doesn’t directly affect the local economy, Francis said its research arm can contribute to broad effects on the daily lives of Massachusetts residents.
“The research that the Boston Fed does on economic conditions, in the area is widely read by our policymakers, by those on Beacon Hill,” said Francis. “And so their research has an impact on what policymakers do when it comes to ... not just economic policy, [but] housing policy [and] education policy.”
