WASHINGTON -- Vincent Reinhart, one of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke's top advisers on interest rates, plans to leave the central bank, people familiar with the decision said. The departure leaves a vacancy at the head of the division that crafts the Fed's policy options at a time when Bernanke is trying to slow inflation without damaging growth. Reinhart helps draft the statements after meetings of the Federal Open Market Committee. Reinhart, 49, plans to join the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington-based think tank, the people said on condition of anonymity. He will write about monetary policy and macroeconomics, joining scholars such as Allan H. Meltzer and John H. Makin.
No successor has been named to succeed Reinhart as director of the Division of Monetary Affairs.