Binyamin Applebaum discusses who Mitt Romney would likely tap to replace Ben Bernanke at the Federal Reserve and says we'd likely get either Greg Mankiw or Glenn Hubbard whose views seem similar to Bernanke's or else we'd get John Taylor who seems like more of a hawk. Neil Irwin offered a longer list of contenders at the beginning of the month, but I think also has those three as his leaders.
From my viewpoint, one thing I think we've learned over the past five years is two modes of inference that don't hold up. One is "the president is sure to appoint someone who'll deliver strong nominal growth to ensure his re-election" and the other is "new Fed Chairman X is sure to do Y because Y is what he said we should do in his academic work." Unfortunately that leaves the situation inherently murky.
So rather than focus on individuals, lets look at what's promising and what's not promising about a Romney influence on monetary policy.
