(Reuters) -The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago's board of directors hired Austan Goolsbee, a former White House economic advisor, to lead the bank when longtime President Charles Evans exits in January under the central bank's age-based mandatory retirement rules.
Goolsbee, 53, chaired the Council of Economic Advisors under President Barack Obama, and more recently as a University of Chicago Booth School of Business economist who helped develop an index of online inflation. He will vote on the Fed's interest-rate-setting panel next year as the central bank continues to wage its toughest battle with inflation in 40 years.
He was selected after an "expansive national search process" that identified a diverse group of candidates from a range of backgrounds, and is himself an "outspoken supporter of expanding diversity in the economics profession," the bank said in a statement.
Activists and lawmakers have urged the central bank to appoint policymakers who look more like the America for which they set monetary policy.
(Reporting by Ann SaphirEditing by Chris Reese and Diane Craft)