Raphael W. Bostic took office June 5, 2017, as the fifteenth president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. He is responsible for all the Bank's activities, including monetary policy, bank supervision and regulation, and payment services. In addition, he serves on the Federal Reserve's chief monetary policy body, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC).
Bostic was born in Delran, New Jersey. He graduated from Harvard University in 1987 with a combined major in economics and psychology. He earned his doctorate in economics from Stanford University in 1995.
Bostic worked at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors from 1995 to 2001, serving as an economist and then a senior economist in the monetary and financial studies section, where his work on the Community Reinvestment Act earned him a special achievement award. In 1999, he served as special assistant to the assistant secretary of policy development and research at the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). He was also a professional lecturer at American University in 1998.
From 2009 to 2012, Bostic served as assistant secretary for policy development and research at HUD. In that role, he was a principal adviser to the secretary on policy and research, helping the secretary and other principal staff make informed decisions on the department’s policies and programs, as well as on budget and legislative proposals.
From 2012 to 2017, Bostic served as the Judith and John Bedrosian Chair in Governance and the Public Enterprise at the Sol Price School of Public Policy at the University of Southern California (USC). He arrived at USC in 2001 and served as a professor in the School of Policy, Planning, and Development. His research spanned many fields, including home ownership, housing finance, neighborhood change, and the role of institutions in shaping policy effectiveness. He was director of USC's master of real estate development degree program and was the founding director of the Casden Real Estate Economics Forecast.
Bostic also served USC’s Lusk Center for Real Estate as the interim associate director from 2007 to 2009 and as the interim director from 2015 to 2016. From 2016 to 2017, he served as the chair of the center’s Governance, Management, and Policy Process department.
Bostic has previously served on many boards and advisory committees, including the California Community Reinvestment Corporation, Abode Communities, NeighborWorks, the National Community Stabilization Trust, the Urban Land Institute, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, the National Economic Association, and Freddie Mac.
