Dallas Fed names Karel Mertens as director of research

The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas has appointed Karel Mertens as director of research and senior vice president in charge of the central bank’s statistics department.

He is currently a senior economic policy advisor at the bank, and since February has held the role of interim director of research.

In the role, Mertens will be tasked with growing research thought leadership, advising on monetary policy, and guide collection of data. His research interests include business cycles, fiscal policy, banking and monetary economics, empirical macroeconomics and time series econometrics.

He is a research fellow at the Center of Economic Policy Research, and before joining the bank in 2017 was an associate professor of economics at Cornell University. Mertens is originally from Belgium, and obtained his Ph.D. in economics from the European University Institute.

Commenting on the appointment, Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan said: “Karel brings a strong research portfolio to his role and exhibits the leadership to build on the important growth of our economic research in recent years.”