Karen Johnson

International Finance Division Director, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System

Karen Johnson was Director of the Division of International Finance at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System from October 1998 until September 2007.

Ms. Johnson was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from Radcliffe College in 1967. She then attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she earned a Ph.D. in economics in 1973.

Ms. Johnson joined the faculty of the Economics Department of Stanford University, where she taught for six years. In 1979, she moved to Washington, D.C. as an economist in the Division of International Finance at the Federal Reserve Board.

She became Chief of the World Payments and Economic Activity Section in 1984, Assistant Director of the Division of International Finance in 1985 and Associate Director in 1997. As Director of that division, she was responsible for analysis of developments in international capital and financial markets, of macroeconomic and policy issues in foreign countries, and of the external transactions of the United States and for oversight of research on topics in international trade and finance.

As of February 2008, Ms. Johnson is retired from the Federal Reserve and is a self-employed economic consultant.