Minneapolis Fed names Kocherlakota as president

WASHINGTON -- The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis has named economics professor Narayana Kocherlakota as president of the bank, replacing Gary Stern, who retired a month ago after 24 years. Kocherlakota is a professor at the University of Minnesota and has been on the research staff at the Minneapolis Fed. He'll be a voting member of the Federal Open Market Committee in 2011. Kocherlakota, 45, graduated from Princeton University with a degree in mathematics at 19 and earned his PhD in economics from the University of Chicago at 23. He has researched and written articles about macroeconomics, monetary economics, financial economics and public finance. He has a forthcoming book on tax policy.