J. Dewey Daane

Co-Founder, Financial Markets Research Center

Biography

An international monetary expert and one of the most esteemed economic minds of the last century, J.Dewey Daane died Jan. 3, 2017 in Nashville at the age of 98. Daane was a Federal Reserve governor from 1963 to 1974 and a longtime professor at Vanderbilt University's Owen Graduate School of Management.

Before entering academia, Daane had a distinguished career in government, including 35 years of service in the Federal Reserve system and at the U.S. Treasury Department. Appointed to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve by President John F. Kennedy in November 1963, Daane served as a voting member of the Federal Open Market Committee, the principal policy-making body in the Federal Reserve system.

Daane joined Owen in 1974 as the Frank K. Houston Professor of Finance and helped establish and run Vanderbilt’s Financial Markets Research Center. In his teaching, Daane focused on the evolution of the international monetary system and on monetary and fiscal policy. He patterned his very popular seminar at Owen after the famous Fiscal Policy Seminar at his alma mater, Harvard’s Littauer School, the predecessor to the Harvard Kennedy School. Daane brought in prominent guest speakers, who happened to be friends, former coworkers, and highly respected economists, such as Paul Volcker, Donald Kohn, Richard Fisher, Roger Brinner, Laurence Meyer, and others. In 2009, these economic heavyweights, along with dozens of others from the Federal Reserve and financial circles, came together to give a special tribute to Daane at the Conference on Financial Markets and Financial Policy.

Prior to his career in Washington, Daane spent more than 20 years in public service. He lived in Paraguay for a year in the early 1950s on a mission for the International Monetary Fund to establish the Central Bank of Paraguay. Then, he joined the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, Virginia, landing various positions, including vice president and director of economic research (1957–1960) and briefly vice president in 1960 and economic adviser to the president and board of directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.

At the request of the undersecretary of the treasury, Daane transferred to Washington, D.C., to serve as assistant to the secretary for debt management. It was from that position that Kennedy appointed Daane to the Federal Reserve Board. Generally regarded as the international governor on the Federal Reserve Board during his tenure, Daane helped represent the United States as U.S. deputy to the ministers and governors of the Group of Ten in meetings related to international monetary crises. Daane also acted as U.S. deputy on the Committee on Reform of the International Monetary System and Related Issues, also called the Committee of Twenty, which produced a classic blueprint for the functioning of the international monetary system.

But it wasn’t all bull markets and forecasts. Daane was well-known for his high spirits and pranks. Take the time in 1966 when Daane faced off with an actual bull. He was attending an international monetary conference in Madrid. The conference attendees, which included representatives of the 50 largest banks in the world, were invited to a famous ranch outside of Toledo where fighting bulls were bred.

When Daane left the Federal Reserve Board in June 1974, he began his career in the private sector as a chaired professor at Vanderbilt. While a faculty member, Daane was also a senior official at Commerce Union Bank and its successor, Sovran Bank (now Bank of America), in Nashville. He held a variety of senior positions at the bank, including vice chairman of the board. He also continued as an adviser to the Congressional Budget Office.

From 1979 to 1982, while still on the Owen faculty, Daane was appointed as a public director of the Chicago Board of Trade. In 1987, he became public director of the National Futures Association. He held that position until 2002. He also served as a director of the Whittaker Corporation, a large multinational company based in Los Angeles, from 1974 to 1989.

Daane continued his interest in and involvement with the Federal Reserve system until his death. In the past few years, Daane participated in multiple international conferences, including The Credit Market Turmoil of 2007-2008: Implications for Public Policy hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and the European Central Bank, and he attended the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund (Group of Thirty) in Washington.

Over the eight decades of his career, Daane never stopped analyzing and critiquing national and international financial systems, searching for ways to make the U.S. economy work better. Until his death, Daane regularly contributed to the Wall Street Journal’s monthly economic survey and had earned a spot in their annual U.S. economic forecasting rankings. He also contributed to USA TODAY’s quarterly economic forecast. Over his career, Daane also lent his expertise to several books and articles, including The Art of Monetary Policy.

Daane received his bachelor’s degree from Duke University, then earned his master’s and doctorate in public administration from the Littauer School, now known as the Harvard Kennedy School, at Harvard University. He holds the unique distinction of being Harvard’s first doctor in public administration.