Jerome Powell - a worthy successor to Janet Yellen

AMONG all the high-level appointments US President Donald Trump has made - many of them of questionable - his choice of the next chairman of the US Federal Reserve is probably the most likely to ensure continuity of policy and operating style. Although he is a Republican, 64 year old Jerome Powell is, by temperament and policy preference, not far different from two of his most immediate predecessors, Janet Yellen and Ben Bernanke - both Democrats. Indeed, he was first appointed to the Fed's governing board by the former Democratic president, Barack Obama.

Unlike the last Republican-appointed Fed chairman, Alan Greenspan, who presided over the Fed from 1987 to 2006, Mr Powell is no free-market ideologue. Nor is he known to be an interest rate hawk, like two other candidates for his job, John Taylor and Kevin Warsh, both of whom have criticised the Fed's low-interest rate policy. He has instead hewed closely to Ms Yellen's relatively dovish views on interest rates. Last month he told a banking conference: "US monetary policy normalisation has been, and should continue to be, gradual - as long as the US economy evolves roughly as expected." Nothing here about the dangers of quantitative easing - a pet theme of the Fed's critics - or the threat of inflation; in fact, he suggested in August that low inflation allows the Fed to be patient with raising rates. Un…