Broaddus to Retire From Fed Bank Post
WASHINGTON -- Alfred Broaddus, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond and one of the Fed's most independent voices on monetary policy, plans to retire on Aug. 1.</br></br>"It has been a great privilege to serve the Federal Reserve, and, most importantly, the public in this role," Mr. Broaddus said. He turns 65 in July, when Fed policy requires its bank presidents to retire.</br></br>He has led the Richmond Fed since Jan. 1, 1993, and has been on the bank's staff since 1970. He is currently a voting member of the Federal Open Market Committee, the Fed's monetary-policy panel.</br></br>Mr. Broaddus's shifting views on the risks of inflation and deflation have symbolized a transformation in the entire central bank. After becoming Richmond Fed president, he became one of its staunchest inflation "hawks," repeatedly dissenting from his colleagues to press for higher interest rates to stem inflationary pressure. But beginning a few years ago, he concluded the Fed had finally reached its goal of price stability and began to worry that the Fed might be slow to recognize the risk of deflation, or falling prices.</br></br>"In the past year, Mr. Broaddus has traveled an interesting path from being a well-known and fierce inflation hawk to being one of the Fed's most prominent warriors about the dangers of deflation," said Tom Schlesinger, executive director kept of the Financial Markets Center, a Virginia-based Fed watchdog group. "I think it reflects well on him that he's taken this intellectual journey and done so in public."