Emmett J. Rice

Emmett John Rice (born December 21, 1919 in Florence , South Carolina , † March 10, 2011 in Camas , Washington ) was an American governor of the Federal Reserve System , manager at the World Bank and economic and development advisor who helped build the banking system of Nigeria in the 1960s years helped.

Life

University professor and World Bank staff

Emmett J. Rice was the youngest of four children of a Methodist - preacher born, who died young, leaving his mother as a school teacher worked. When he was 13 years old, his mother moved to Harlem with the children .

After attending school, he studied economics at the City College of New York and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (BA Economics) and a Master of Arts (MA Economics). His interest in economics arose during the Great Depression . He later stated in a lecture in 1991:

“Twenty-five percent of the population was unemployed. I wanted to understand an economy that allowed this to happen. ”('I wanted to understand an economy which allowed this to happen.')

After graduating, he did his military service with the US Army Air Forces and was most recently captain of the Tuskegee Airmen , a group of well-known African-American pilots who flew combat missions for the 332nd and 477th Fighter Group during World War II .

In the early 1950s , he received yet as an assistant at the Faculty of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley), a grant from the Fulbright Program , which him to India led where he guest researcher at the Reserve Bank of India was. His studies of the local economic development became the basis of his dissertation .

After teaching at UC Berkeley and Cornell University, he worked as an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on a sabbatical in 1960 . Two years later, in 1962, he accepted the offer of the US Agency for International Development for a position in the now independent Nigeria, where he made his knowledge available to help set up the Central Bank of Nigeria .

Then in 1964 he was appointed Deputy Director of the Office for Developing Countries in the US Treasury Department , where he worked on formulating financial policy foundations for the countries in Africa , Asia and the Middle East . This work led US President Lyndon B. Johnson to appoint him in 1966 as Alternate Director and then Acting Director for the United States at the World Bank.

Governor of the Federal Reserve System

US President Jimmy Carter called Rice in March 1979 in the seven-member Board of Governors ( Board of Governors ) of the Federal Reserve System, the monetary policy defines and lays down rules for the banks in the United States. He was the second African American after Andrew F. Brimmer to be appointed to this body.

During the tenure of Federal Reserve System Chairman Paul Volcker , Rice spent eight years helping shape fiscal policy during a recession and the savings-and-loan crisis of the 1980s . He headed the administrative body of the Board of Governors, which at the time monitored its international organizations and outreach programs, with his interests in particular, as he dealt in particular with US American, but also international economic opportunities and developments. In 1987 he finally retired.

Emmett John Rice, who died of heart failure , was the father of former Assistant Secretary of State and US Ambassador to the United Nations , Susan E. Rice .

Web links

• THE BOSTON GLOBE: Emmett J. Rice, 91; helped steer Fed in recession (March 14, 2011)
• THE ROOT: Emmett J. Rice, Federal Reserve Governor, Dies at 91 (March 15, 2011)
• NEW YORK TIMES: Emmett J. Rice, Former Fed Governor, Is Dead at 91 (March 21, 2011)