Mr. Kwast, until recently a Senior Officer at the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, D.C., has over 30 years experience providing public policy analysis and advice to the Federal Reserve Board on banks, bank supervision and regulation, financial stability, deposit insurance, antitrust and other financial institutions and markets issues. Mr. Kwast's most recent responsibilities focused on financial stability, including the resolution of troubled large banking institutions, the definition of systemic risk, and the impact of financial instability on the real economy; financial regulatory reform; deposit insurance; bank capital regulation; implications of the consolidation of the U.S. banking system, including financial system risk and antitrust analysis of proposed mergers; and the use of market discipline and market data in the supervision of financial institutions.He often represented the Board of Governors with principals and senior staff of other domestic and international agencies, and frequently drafted testimony and speeches for Board members. Mr. Kwast was also responsible for overall management of much of the Division of Research and Statistics' work on financial stability, bank supervision and regulation and antitrust analysis. Mr. Kwast co-chaired the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision's Research Task Force (RTF) for over four years prior to leaving the Federal Reserve. The RTF includes members from the central banks and bank supervisory agencies of over fifteen countries plus international organizations.Under Mr. Kwast's direction, the RTF completed major international projects on concentration risk at financial institutions, stress testing at financial institutions, the interaction of market and credit risk, and credit risk models used by banking organisations. In addition, the RTF initiated a major project on transmission channels between the financial and real sectors, and conducted a significant international conference each year.Mr. Kwast has published over 30 papers in professional journals, has spoken frequently at professional meetings, and has been a Visiting Scholar at the Swiss National Bank and the Dutch National Bank. Mr. Kwast holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, a B.A. in International Relations from American University in Washington, D.C., and has worked at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Mr. Kwast joined the staff of the Federal Reserve in 1978.
