President Obama has a new nominee for his economics team-and he’s the Princeton professor who helped design the “cash for clunkers” program:



[Alan] Krueger, 50, a labor specialist who served in Obama’s Treasury Department in the first two years of the administration, returns to Washington to succeed Austan Goolsbee, who is now back at the University of Chicago.



A senior administration official told Fox News on Monday that Krueger’s job will be to provide policy prescriptions on ways to spur unemployment. Obama was expected to announce his nominee, who has already been confirmed by the Senate once, for the post. 



Krueger, whose nomination was first revealed by The Wall Street Journal, has reportedly worked on several analyses at Treasury, including the impact of tax incentives to encourage employers to hire, the “cash for clunkers” program to expand vehicle purchases and Build America taxable municipal bonds.


Kreuger is best known for a study with David Card that disputes the notion (they call it a myth) that raising the minimum wage causes higher unemploymen. I imagine that Walter Williams, one of the foremost experts on the minimum wage, would have something to say about this. This appointment, coming close to the jobs speech, may turn out to be quite a clunker.