Labor Economist to Replace Austan Goolsbee as Top Economic Adviser

President Obama will nominate Princeton labor economist Alan Krueger to replace Austan Goolsbee as the chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers Monday, The Wall Street Journal's David Wessel reports. The 50-year-old served as assistant Treasury secretary for economic policy during Obama's first two years in office; he worked on post-financial crisis policies like "cash for clunkers." Krueger will likely "provide a voice inside the administration for more-aggressive government action to bring down unemployment and, particularly, to address long-term joblessness," Wessel explains. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner pointed to Krueger's resume as the reason he's "precisely the right choice to lead the CEA at this moment in history."

Goolsbee, who is returning to the University of Chicago to teach, served as the public face of Obama's economic team, Wessel writes, and Krueger is likely to fill that role.