No Fed Pick for at Least Few More Days

The world has at least a few more days to wait for President Barack Obama to announce his pick to lead the Federal Reserve, a top White House economic official said Thursday.

Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Jason Furman in an interview with the Wall Street Journal said he wouldn’t expect the Fed announcement this week.

Mr. Furman declined to say if Mr. Obama had made up his mind on whom to nominate. Other senior White House officials have said Fed Vice Chairwoman Janet Yellen is the front runner.

“It’s an important decision,” Mr. Furman said when asked why it has taken Mr. Obama so long to announce his pick. “The president took this decision very seriously and there’s somebody who is in the job right now whose term doesn’t expire, you know instantly, and there will be more than enough time for Congress to consider whoever the president chooses to nominate. More than enough time.”

While he didn’t comment on Ms. Yellen’s prospects for a promotion, Mr. Furman said he enjoyed working for her when she was the head of the Council of Economic Advisers in the 1990s — the job he now holds.

“She was terrific. She was really smart, really thorough and methodical. She wanted to read all the material, do her homework,” he said. Ms. Yellen tended not to make intuitive jumps in her thinking but rather would think through the economic model and how everything related and fit together, based on the data, he said.

On her leadership style, he said: “When you have someone who is really smart and working really hard and really cares about what the theory and the evidence says, people like working for them.”

Mr. Furman dismissed concerns bubbling up among congressional Democrats that the lack of a Fed nominee so far could create difficulties in winning Senate confirmation. Some worry confirmation hearings could be held up by the current fiscal fights that led to a partial government shutdown this week.

“When there is an announcement there will be more than enough time for congress to consider the nominee on the merits,” Mr. Furman said. The Senate Banking Committee could hold confirmation hearings at the same time the full Senate engaged in debate on other issues, he said. “You see that all the time… There will be more than enough time for the Senate to be able to consider this important issue,” he said.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s term ends Jan. 31, and the president has signaled that Mr. Bernanke will leave the Fed then. With no nominee yet, confirmation hearings aren’t likely to happen until late October or November, a Senate aide said last week. Then the committee votes on whether to send the nominee to the full Senate for a vote. The Senate then typically takes a month or more before voting. An analysis by BNP Paribas found that from announcement to final confirmation by the full Senate, the process took 99 days for Mr. Bernanke’s first term as chairman and 155 days for his second term.