Reflections
What exactly is MONEY? How does it work? Why do we need it? All of these questions can be answered by one person. Randy Krosner! He’s a Professor at the University of Chicago and a Former Member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve (Yes, they are the people that decide how much money should be printed!!) Imagine that! (Quick note: They don’t actually print the money themselves – but they *decide!*)
Randy told us about how important picking the RIGHT FRIENDS is and how he had a great set of high school friends and they all ended up getting PhDs. It’s pretty cool to have friends that have goals SIMILAR to yours.
One thing that I did not expect was his answer to my question about what kids should learn more of. He said STATISTICS – because it helps people make better decisions. My father has since given me a comic book on statistics and it is quite a lot of fun!!
My favourite part of the interview is when Randy described his Father reading the book, “The little train who could” to him. It’s about a train trying to get to the top of the hill but his friends tell him that he cannot get there because he is not BIG enough – he was small. But he didn’t give up. Instead he repeated the following words to himself, “I can do it, I can do it, I can do it.” (Try saying “I can do it” when you are out of breath – it sounds a lot like a train!). Guess, what? He made it!
It’s hard to struggle through something like the little red train, but I have done it.
Biography
Randall S. Kroszner is Deputy Dean for Executive Programs and Norman R. Bobins Professor of Economics. Dr. Kroszner served as a Governor of the Federal Reserve System from 2006 until 2009. He chaired the committee on Supervision and Regulation of Banking Institutions and the committee on Consumer and Community Affairs. In these capacities, he took a leading role in developing responses to the financial crisis and in undertaking new initiatives to improve consumer protection and disclosure, including rules related to home mortgages and credit cards. He represented the Federal Reserve Board on the Financial Stability Forum (now called the Financial Stability Board), the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, and the Central Bank Governors of the American Continent and was a director of NeighborWorks America. Dr. Kroszner chaired the working party of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), composed of deputy central bank governors and finance ministers, on Policies for the Promotion of Better International Payments Equilibrium. As a member of the Fed Board, he was also a voting member of the Federal Open Market Committee.
From 2001 to 2003, Dr. Kroszner was a member of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers (CEA). He was involved in formulating policy on a wide range of issues, including responses to corporate governance scandals, government-sponsored enterprise reform, pension reform, terrorism risk insurance, tax reform, currency crisis management, sovereign debt restructuring, the role of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and international trade and development.
Since 1990, Dr. Kroszner has taught at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Dr. Kroszner was Director of the George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State. He served as editor of the Journal of Law & Economics and has been associate editor of a number of other academic and policy journals. He was a member of the board of directors at the National Association for Business Economics and the Financial Management Association.
Dr. Kroszner serves as the Chair of the Financial Research Advisory Committee of the Office of Financial Research of the U.S. Treasury. He is a member of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago’s Academic Advisory Council and of the board of advisors of the Paulson Institute. In addition, he is a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. He is member of the board of trustees of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and a member of the board of directors of the Renaissance Society.
Dr. Kroszner has been a visiting scholar at the Securities and Exchange Commission, the IMF, the Stockholm School of Economics, the Stockholm University, the Free University of Berlin, Germany, the London School of Economics, and the American Enterprise Institute. He was the John M. Olin Visiting Fellow in Law and Economics at the University of Chicago Law School the Bertil Danielson Visiting Professor of Banking and Finance at the Stockholm School of Economics, and the SK Chaired Visiting Professor at Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea.
His research interests include regulation of financial institutions, international financial crises, the Great Depression, monetary economics, corporate governance, debt restructuring and bankruptcy, and political economy. His paper on managerial stock ownership (with Clifford Holderness and Dennis Sheehan) won the Brattle Prize for best corporate finance paper in the Journal of Finance. His book co-authored with Nobel laureate Robert J. Shiller, Reforming U.S. Financial Markets: Reflections Before and Beyond Dodd-Frank (MIT Press) appeared on the Washington Post’s Book World political best sellers list.
Dr. Kroszner is a frequent commentator in the international media. He provides advice to financial institutions, government organizations, and central banks throughout the world.
Dr. Kroszner received a Sc.B. (magna cum laude) in applied mathematics-economics (honors) from Brown University in 1984 and an M.A. (1987) and Ph.D. (1990), both in economics, from Harvard University.
Source: https://www.chicagobooth.edu/faculty/directory/k/randall-s-kroszner
