Nathan Sheets

D. Nathan Sheets is an economist and Chief Economist and Head of Global Macroeconomic Research with PGIM Fixed Income. He served as the Under Secretary for International Affairs of the United States Department of the Treasury from 2014 to 2017. He was appointed by President Barack Obama and unanimously confirmed by the US Senate in September 2014. He was sworn in on October 7. The Office of International Affairs “protects and supports U.S. economic prosperity by strengthening the external environment for U.S. growth, preventing and mitigating global financial instability and managing key global challenges.”[1]

Sheets received his bachelor’s degree in economics from Brigham Young University in 1989. As a recipient of the National Science Foundation Fellowship, he completed his PhD in economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1993.

Prior to his nomination, he worked for eighteen years with the Federal Reserve. The Deseret News reported that his duties included “monitoring the Russian economy during the early phase of its transition away from communism.”

He also led the team that analyzed emerging market economies and wrote extensively about the global economic outlook and the performance of U.S. international trade.

His most challenging assignment, he said, ran from 2007 to 2011, the years of global financial crisis. “The policy responses that were put in place by the Fed and by other policy makers during that intense period were essential to the stabilization of the economy. It was also a privilege to be present as many of these policy decisions were made—and to have the opportunity to contribute to some of these important decisions.”

After he left the Fed in 2011, he was the global head of international economics at Citigroup until his federal government appointment.

Sheets is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.