“Christina Romer, who has been selected to be chairwoman of the Council of Economic Advisers, is something of a cipher to most non-economists. That is a pity, since she is among the most interesting and impressive of Mr. Obama’s choices. She is one of the world’s pre-eminent economic historians and her scholarship makes her particularly well-suited for advising a president during this tumultuous period,” writes Harvard economist Edward Glaeser.