Bloomberg 50

Lisa Cook, Fed Pioneer

In May, Cook became the first Black woman on the Federal Reserve Board in its 108-year history.

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By Catarina Saraiva

December 14, 2022 at 10:47 AM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

This article is part of the December 26, 2022 issue of businessweek.

Her path to confirmation wasn’t easy. A professor at Michigan State University, Lisa Cook endured backlash from Republican senators over her research into the historical effects of violence on Black innovation. After almost four months of debate, she was confirmed, 51-50, with Vice President Kamala Harris breaking the tie. Now, Cook is helping to shape central bank policy as it tackles the highest inflation in decades.

Cook is renowned for her research into economic inequality and its impact on growth. Specifically, she’s looked at how lynchings affected the number of patents issued and the impact of those lost patents on American innovation. From 1870 to 1940, Black Americans filed 726 patents, but Cook’s extrapolations suggest there would’ve been 1,100 more without lynchings.