Kevin Warsh Appoints 15 Experts to Five Fed Reform Task Forces

Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh appointed 15 external advisers to lead five independent task forces on Thursday to modernize the central bank's monetary policy conduct. The panels—composed of economists, business leaders, and former central bank practitioners—will review communications, balance sheet policy, data usage, inflation frameworks, and productivity and jobs. Warsh aims to update the Fed's analytical tools to reflect a significantly changed economy, specifically integrating real-time data and analyzing the impact of artificial intelligence.

Notable appointments include venture capitalist Marc Andreessen and Xbox CEO Asha Sharma, who co-lead the productivity and jobs task force. Other leaders include Harvard economist Raj Chetty for data and former Bank of England Governor Mervyn King for communications. The balance sheet task force, which will evaluate the Fed's $6.7 trillion in government bond holdings, is led by Raghuram Rajan, Karen Dynan, and Jeremy Stein. The group also includes international expertise from former central bank heads of Brazil, India, and England.

The initiative follows Warsh's previous calls for a "regime change" and seeks to provide rigorous, evidence-based findings to the Federal Open Market Committee. While the Federal Reserve emphasized that the process will operate independently, the appointment of Sharma drew criticism due to her concurrent oversight of 3,200 layoffs at Xbox. The task forces are expected to deliver their final policy recommendations by the end of the year.