"It speaks well of the CEA that they have attracted someone of his talent and open-mindedness," he said.

Lawrence says if he receives confirmation, he will continue to take time off from his professorship at the Kennedy School.

"I anticipate being here [in Washington] until the end of the [Clinton] administration," he said.

Frankel, nominated to the CEA by Clinton in 1996, said he is looking forward to settling into his new position at the Kennedy School. He will move to the Cambridge area July 1.

Putnam said he is very pleased that Frankel has accepted the offered professorship. "I...tried unsuccessfully to recruit Frankel [when dean of KSG] and I'm delighted that Dean Nye succeeded where I failed," he said.

He called Frankel an "outstanding technical economist...who is also intelligently sensitive to the political and social context within which economic policy must be made." "His arrival will give great added strength in an absolutely vital field," he added.

Frankel seemed to be equally enthusiastic about returning to an academic environment after taking several years leave from the University of California--Berkeley, where he held an economics professorship and served as director of the Center for International and Development Economics Research.

"It's very exciting," he said. "[KSG Dean] Joseph Nye is doing some very exciting things with the place, particularly in the areas I'm interested in," including macroeconomics, finance and international economics.