“Why are so many people unemployed at the same time that there are a large number of job openings?” the Academy Sciences wrote in the statement today. “This year’s laureates have developed a theory which can be used to answer these questions. This theory is also applicable to markets other than the labor market.”

President Barack Obama chose Diamond for a post on the Federal Reserve Board in April, subject to confirmation by the Senate. The nomination was later returned to the White House because of objections from at least one unidentified senator. Obama resubmitted Diamond’s name on Sept. 13.

This is disgusting: Senate Republicans holding up Peter Diamond’s nomination to the Federal Reserve Board on the grounds that he may not be qualified to make monetary policy. Aside from the fact that the same Senators cheerfully confirmed Bush nominees who didn’t know much about economics of any kind, this is especially stupid right now.

Why? Because right now one of the hot topics is whether the apparent shift in the Beveridge curve signals a rise in structural unemployment — and Diamond wrote the seminal paper on the whole subject — the top result on Google scholar.

Diamond is exactly the man we need — which, given the way things have been going lately, probably means he won’t get confirmed.

Update: Some commenters note, correctly, that there’s an ongoing dispute over what the rise in vacancies without a corresponding fall in unemployment means. But that’s precisely the point: we want Peter Diamond, who pioneered the whole study of this subject, in the Fed, where he can help make sense of the situation.

But under an arcane procedural rule, the Senate sent Mr. Diamond’s nomination back to the White House on Thursday night before starting its summer recess. A leading Republican senator, Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, said that Mr. Diamond did not have sufficiently broad macroeconomic experience to help run the central bank.

So, what's this all about? It's worth considering the possibility that congressional Republicans, not content with blocking legislation that might improve the economy, also want to prevent the Federal Reserve from exercising its powers and pumping more capital into the economy. Jonathan Cohn's take, explaining what President Obama's nominees may do if confirmed to the Fed, is worth reading.

One of his nominees, Janet Yellen, has said publicly that the Fed has an obligation to focus more on employment during times like these. And while I don't know whether Diamond has said similar things, I know enough about his philosophical bearings to know -- or, at least, suspect strongly -- that he'd push for more employment-focused policies, as well. As Paul Krugman notes today, Diamond wrote the seminal paper on structural shifts in unemployment.

In other words, Obama's nominees may very well use the power of the Fed to improve the American economy -- so Shelby is slowing the process down, on purpose, and making the White House needlessly jump through procedural hoops without a coherent explanation.

It may be because Shelby is "just being a prick," but it seems just as likely that the Republican senator hopes to paralyze the Federal Reserve, keeping it from giving the economy a much-needed boost.

“Why are so many people unemployed at the same time that there are a large number of job openings?” the Academy Sciences wrote in the statement today. “This year’s laureates have developed a theory which can be used to answer these questions. This theory is also applicable to markets other than the labor market.”