openpolitics.com

Ms. Yellen has a possibility of being renominated, according to this consensus, but it is only 22 percent; experts think that Kevin Warsh, a former Fed governor with deep Republican ties, has a slightly better chance at 23 percent.

.. The case for renominating Ms. Yellen is straightforward.

She has presided over four years of steady economic expansion and rising financial markets. She moved cautiously toward raising interest rates even though the economy seemed to be approaching full employment. By contrast, some more conservative contenders for the job have indicated they want to raise rates more quickly, which could endanger the economy as President Trump approaches midterm elections in 2018 and a potential re-election battle in 2020.

.. Moreover, as President Trump dabbles in making deals with Democrats, reappointing Ms. Yellen could serve as an expression of good faith to Democratic senators. As administration officials focus on tax legislation and other priorities on Capitol Hill, it might be helpful to them to nominate someone who might sail through confirmation, rather than demand a bruising, time-consuming battle.

.. The case against Ms. Yellen is similarly straightforward: She is a liberal economist in a government dominated by conservatives. She is a cerebral academic serving during the presidency of a bombastic businessman. And she is a staunch defender of the work the Fed and other bank regulators have done to try to limit risk in the financial system — including in a high-profile speech last month — amid an administration focused on deregulation.

Kevin Warsh: well connected, but with baggage

He has a law degree, but no advanced degree in economics.

.. Mr. Warsh has been a skeptic of the Fed’s efforts to boost the economy through quantitative easing and has advocated raising interest rates more quickly. He also has a regulatory philosophy more in line with the administration’s.

.. Mr. Warsh’s father-in-law is Ronald Lauder, of the Estée Lauder cosmetics fortune, a major Republican donor with longstanding ties to Mr. Trump.

.. If Mr. Warsh is nominated, expect significant blowback during the confirmation process from Democrats, who are likely to accuse the 47-year-old Mr. Warsh of being underqualified, of being responsible for the 2008 bank bailouts and inclined to regulate banks too lightly now, and of being too overtly political for the traditionally nonpartisan Fed chairmanship.

Whatever happened to Gary Cohn?

Not long ago, Gary Cohn, the head of the White House National Economic Council, looked like the leading candidate to be the next Fed chairman. In late July, his odds were 46 percent on PredictIt. But now our panel puts those odds at 12 percent, and PredictIt’s odds were about the same.

 .. Mr. Cohn has been reported to have swung out of favor with Mr. Trump after criticizing his response to racially motivated violence in Charlottesville, Va.

.. Mr. Cohn has a hard-charging style that would be an unusual fit for an agency that is run more like an academic department.

.. Democrats would be eager to criticize the administration for naming a recent top executive at Goldman Sachs to be the nation’s most powerful financial regulator. Some populist Republicans might join them.

.. Foremost among them are several of the names we would probably be hearing about if a conventional Republican president were in the White House

.. John B. Taylor is a respected economist at Stanford who worked in the George W. Bush administration and has been an influential voice among congressional Republicans who want to see the Fed bound by stricter rules governing its actions.

Glenn Hubbard was a top economic adviser to Mr. Bush who is dean of Columbia Business School.

Larry Lindsey was another top adviser to Mr. Bush and a former Fed governor with an economics doctorate from Harvard.

.. Their doctorates and affiliations with top universities may actually be downsides in an administration that has shown disdain for academic expertise.

.. Jerome Powell, known as Jay, a current Fed governor who served in the George H.W. Bush Treasury Department and was a partner at the Carlyle Group, the private equity firm. If Mr. Trump wanted a nominee who would probably maintain continuity with current Fed policy but was more conservative and business-minded than Ms. Yellen, Mr. Powell would be a below-the-radar option. The panel rates his odds of ending up in the job at 5 percent.

.. other names has emerged in various reports, including the F.D.I.C. vice chairman Thomas Hoenig and John Allison