William Poole

William Poole was appointed the eleventh president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis on March 23, 1998, a position he held with distinction until his retirement on March 31, 2008. During his influential ten-year tenure, Poole played a significant role in national monetary policy discussions, notably serving as a voting member of the Federal Open Market Committee in 2007. He further disseminated his economic insights and the Bank’s perspective through more than 150 speeches delivered on a wide range of economic and financial topics.

Beyond academia, he provided critical public policy guidance as a member of the Council of Economic Advisers from 1982 to 1985 during the first Reagan administration. His international academic engagements included a stint as a visiting economist at the Reserve Bank of Australia in 1980–81 and as the Bank Mees and Hope Visiting Professor of Economics at Erasmus University in Rotterdam in 1991. A prolific author, Poole significantly shaped economic discourse through his publications. He penned ‘Money and the Economy: A Monetarist View’ in 1978 and coauthored ‘Principles of Economics’ with J.

Vernon Henderson in 1991, both of which became foundational texts. His academic foundation includes an M.B.A. earned in 1963 and a Ph.D. in economics in 1966, both from the University of Chicago, which equipped him with a deep economic perspective applied throughout his career.

Poole’s profound contributions to economic thought and policy have garnered numerous accolades. He received a doctor of laws degree from Swarthmore College in 1989 and was inducted into the prestigious Johns Hopkins Society of Scholars in 2005. Further recognition included the Adam Smith Award from the National Association for Business Economics in 2006, followed by the Frederick Heldring Award from the Global Interdependence Center in 2007, cementing his legacy as a leading voice in economic policy.