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Sheila Tschinkel

Sheila TschinkelA former senior vice president at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta and U.S. Treasury economic advisor in Europe and Asia, Sheila Tschinkel is an authority on economic and financial policy issues. She is a distinguished visiting scholar at The Halle Institute, a visiting professor in the Department of Economics, and principal of SLT Finance and Economics, where she advises businesses, investors, and governments.

On November 3, Tschinkel hosted "What Should We Really Expect from Macroeconomic Policy?," a research conference presented by The Halle Institute and The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta featuring a keynote address by world-renowned economist Alan Blinder.

She was recently interviewed about the fate of the economy, whether the United States is headed for a second recession, and the best way to turn the economy around.


"I think we should consider expanding the deficit by having the government’s role get a bit larger right now," Tschinkel said. "I know a lot of people object to this, but the reason it is logical is that if consumer demand is weak because unemployment is high and business doesn’t want to expand because of its concern about weak consumer demand, then that is precisely the time for government to expand demand. Lifting demand will help get things going."

Last fall, Tschinkel gave a public address titled "Is the U.S. Becoming a Third-World Country?" as part of the Halle Speaker Series.


As U.S. Treasury economic advisor in several Eastern European and Central Asian countries from 1997 to 2009, Tschinkel worked with prime ministers, finance ministers, and central bank governors on macroeconomic policy issues and cash and debt management. Her ability to facilitate discussion was instrumental in obtaining agreement to divide the assets and liabilities of the former Yugoslavia among the five countries that succeeded it.

Before her career abroad, Tschinkel served as senior vice president and director of research at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta and was a member of the bank’s management committee. She was the first woman appointed to this position in the Federal Reserve.

In this capacity, she regularly attended meetings of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the Federal Reserve Bank’s monetary policy setting group. Under Ms. Tschinkel, the Atlanta Bank became the first Fed research department to specialize in finance as well as macroeconomic and regional issues.

Earlier, Tschinkel was an official of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. There, she had administrative responsibility for the open market trading desk, where monetary policy is implemented. In the private sector she was vice president and director of global asset management at Chase Bank N.A., where she ran the bank’s multi-billion dollar investment portfolio and oversaw the global management of loan assets.

Tschinkel completed the Advanced Management Program at Harvard University, where she was the first woman class chair. She completed graduate work in economics at Yale University and received an undergraduate degree from Hunter College, City University of New York; she is a member of the Hunter College Hall of Fame.