James B. Bullard

James Brian Bullard (born February 28, 1961) is the former chief executive officer and 12th president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, a position he held from 2008 until August 14, 2023.

In July 2023, he was named dean of the Mitchell E. Daniels Jr. School of Business at Purdue University.

Bullard was born in Columbus, Wisconsin, and grew up in Forest Lake, Minnesota.

He received bachelor's degrees in economics and in quantitative methods and information systems from St. Cloud State University in 1984 and a Ph.D. in economics from Indiana University in 1990.

Bullard began his career as an academic economist and monetary policy scholar.

His research has appeared in numerous professional journals, including the American Economic Review, the Journal of Monetary Economics, Macroeconomic Dynamics and the Journal of Money, Credit and Banking.

Serving 15 years as the sitting president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Bullard earned significant praise and accolades for his long-standing leadership and innovative thinking as part of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) in guiding the direction of U.S. monetary policy.

Before becoming president in 2008, Bullard served in various roles at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, starting in 1990 as an economist in the research division and later serving as vice president and deputy director of research for monetary analysis.

For 15 years, he directed the activities of the Federal Reserve's Eighth District, which branches into several states, including an extensive portion of southern Indiana.

In November 2009, Bullard opined that the central bank should extend its mortgage-backed securities buying program beyond its expiration date in March 2010, which would (according to the New York Times) keep interest rates low and help keep the dollar weak.

While serving on the Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee, Macroeconomic Advisers named Bullard the FOMC's second biggest mover of markets in 2010 behind Chairman Ben Bernanke and the biggest mover of markets in 2011 and 2013.

Bullard served as an honorary professor of economics at Washington University in St. Louis, where he also sat on the advisory council of the economics department as well as several advisory boards.

Macroeconomic Advisers named Bullard the FOMC's second biggest mover of markets in 2010 behind Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and the biggest mover of markets in 2011 and 2013.

Since 2010, Bullard has appeared numerous times as a host and commentator on CNBC, CNN, Bloomberg Television, BNN and Fox Business, among other media outlets.

His most recent appearances include:

Fox Business: Inflation is going in the right direction: James Bullard

Nikkei Asia: [https://asia.nikkei.com/Editor-s-Picks/Interview/U.S.-to-most-likely-avoid-recession-ex-St.-Louis-Fed-s-Bullard-says?_ga=2.4682867.1172107131.1701967493-1534492791.1701967493 U.S. to 'most likely' avoid recession, ex-St.

Louis Fed's Bullard says]

Bloomberg: There is a risk the reaccelleration of the U.S. economy will filter into inflation

Fox Business: Inflation not likely to fall as quickly as Fed hopes: James Bullard

CNBC: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7398VgNKjc Former St. Louis Fed Pres.

Bullard: Markets hate uncertainties]

Bloomberg: Bullard on US Economy, FOMC Policy, Interest Rates

During the summer of 2010, Bullard warned that the U.S. economy was at risk of becoming "enmeshed in a Japanese-style deflationary outcome within the next several years," a view he presented in his research paper, "Seven Faces of 'The Peril.'" According to the New York Times, Bullard "had been viewed as a centrist and associated with the camp that sees inflation, the Fed's traditional enemy, as a greater threat than deflation," along with Charles I. Plosser, then-president of the Philadelphia Fed; Richard W. Fisher, then-president of the Dallas Fed; and Thomas M. Hoenig, then-president of the Kansas City Fed.

Laurence H. Meyer, a former Fed governor, said Bullard's new position was "very significant .... He has been one of the most hawkish members."

In February 2011, Bullard was named in a Bloomberg.com article as "a bellwether person," an "indicator of where the full committee (of the FOMC) is heading."

Macroeconomic Advisers noted that, in 2011, his speeches and interviews moved the two-year Treasury yield by almost 17 basis points and, in 2013, he moved the 10-year yield by 29 basis points on a cumulative basis.

A noted economist and scholar, Bullard had been the longest-serving Federal Reserve Bank president in the country and ranked as the seventh-most influential economist in the world in 2014.

His scholarly impact has been based on research-based thinking and intellectual openness to new theories and explanations.

That allowed Bullard to be an early voice for economic change, helping the Federal Reserve deftly navigate complex economic landscapes such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the financial crisis during his tenure.

In 2016, Bullard announced a new approach for the St. Louis Fed's near-term U.S. macroeconomic and monetary policy projections.

The new approach is based on the idea that the economy may experience one of several possible persistent regimes, which involve a combination of recession or no recession, high or low productivity growth, and high or low real returns on short-term government debt.

While switches between regimes are possible, they are difficult to forecast.

This contrasts with the more traditional approach to monetary policy projections, which assumes that the economy will converge to one single, long-run steady state.

In the statement released June 17, 2016, Bullard said the current regime is characterized by low productivity growth, low real returns on short-term government debt and no recession.

"Policy is regime dependent, leading to a recommended policy rate path which is essentially flat over the forecast horizon," he said, where the forecast horizon is two to three years.

He explained the need for a new approach in a speech on June 30, 2016.

Given that the cyclical dynamics that resulted from the recession appeared to be over, Bullard said: "It no longer made sense to submit a forecast of output growing above trend, unemployment continuing to decline, inflation rising above target, and the policy rate increasing at a fairly steep pace. We needed to rethink our approach to forecasting."

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch named him the Top Workplace Leader among the region's large employers as part of its 2018 Top Workplace Awards.

Active in the community, Bullard has served on the board of directors of Concordance Academy of Leadership in St. Louis and was formerly the board chair of the United Way U.S.A. He is coeditor of the Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, a member of the editorial advisory board of the National Institute Economic Review and a member of the Central Bank Research Association's senior council.