Loretta J. Mester

Dr. Loretta J. Mester is an executive vice president and director of research at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. As director of research, she heads a staff of economists and analysts who conduct research on macroeconomics, banking, payments, finance, and the regional economy, and she attends meetings of the Federal Open Market Committee in Washington, D.C., with the Bank’s president. She also oversees the Bank’s Payment Cards Center, which conducts research on consumer finance and payments, and the Bank’s Financial Statistics Department, which collects data and reports from financial institutions. Dr. Mester is also an Adjunct Professor of Finance at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and a Fellow at the Wharton Financial Institutions Center. She is a member of the Finance Department Advisory Council of the Fox School of Business and Management at Temple University and the Economics Advisory Council of the LeBow College of Business at Drexel University. Dr. Mester’s publications include research on the organizational structure and production efficiency of financial institutions, the theory of financial intermediation, agency problems and regulatory issues in banking, and central bank governance. She is an associate editor of several academic journals and serves on the management committee of the International Journal of Central Banking. She is a founding member and director of the Financial Intermediation Research Society, and a member of the American Economic Association and its Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession, the American Finance Association, the Financial Management Association, and the Econometric Society. Dr. Mester earned a B.A. in mathematics and economics summa cum laude from Barnard College of Columbia University and a M.A. and Ph.D. in economics from Princeton University, where she held a National Science Foundation Fellowship.