Nov 5 (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Barack Obama is expected to move quickly to announce his selections for top economic posts, including Treasury secretary.
While Republican President George W. Bush serves until Jan. 20, analysts say the newly elected Democrat will want to have an economic team assembled and ready to hit the ground running when he takes office.
The officials will be in the forefront of efforts to battle the financial crisis and strengthen an economy that many worry could be headed for a deep recession.
Here are the main contenders for the senior jobs:
TREASURY SECRETARY
* Lawrence Summers. He was Treasury secretary under Bill Clinton and is the former president of Harvard University. Summers' tenure at Harvard was marked by conflict with faculty and other controversies but Wall Street held him in high regard during his time at Treasury.
Summers has been a top adviser to Obama, especially after the financial crisis broke out in mid-September. He gained seasoning as a financial firefighter during the 1990s when he grappled with the Mexican peso crisis, the Asian financial flu and the Russian financial crisis.
* Timothy Geithner. New York Federal Reserve Bank president. Geithner has argued that banks crucial to the global financial system should operate under a unified regulatory framework. Former treasury undersecretary for international affairs during the Clinton administration, where he worked with former Treasury secretaries Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers.
* Paul Volcker. The former Federal Reserve chairman has long been seen as a formidable figure in the financial world after he broke the back of double-digit inflation that emerged during the 1970s and '80s. He endorsed Obama in January and was a key adviser in helping him craft a March speech in which the Democratic candidate called for an overhaul of U.S. financial regulations.
Obama consulted him frequently during the campaign.
* Laura Tyson. She is the former chairwoman of Bill Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers and also served as his National Economic Council director. She is now a professor at the University of California, Berkeley and was tapped as a key adviser to Obama after he secured the Democratic nomination for president in June.
* Gov. Jon Corzine of New Jersey. He is a former U.S. senator from New Jersey and former chairman of investment house Goldman Sachs. Corzine is a one-time Hillary Clinton supporter who later stepped up work for Obama. Appeared in Chicago at an economic summit with Obama, and has helped articulate the candidate's program to curb speculation in energy markets. While some speculate he could be tapped, he told an interviewer on Nov. 5 that he has had no discussions about the job.
DIRECTOR OF THE NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL
* Jason Furman. Furman is Obama's top economic policy coordinator. A close associate of former U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, Furman was tapped shortly after Obama clinched the Democratic nomination on June 3. He was an aide in the Clinton White House and worked with Rubin on the Hamilton Project, a centrist research organization that promotes policies like free trade and fiscal discipline. Furman's reputation as a backer of free trade initially concerned some of Obama's union supporters.
CHAIRMAN OF THE COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC ADVISERS
* Austan Goolsbee. The University of Chicago economist is an expert on tax policy and has written extensively on the role of the Internet and technology in the economy. A longtime adviser to Obama, Goolsbee has been a major player in shaping the president-elect's economic plans. He sparked controversy in March after he met with Canadian officials. A leaked memo suggested Goolsbee played down Obama's opposition to NAFTA. The Obama campaign said the memo was inaccurate.
U.S. TRADE REPRESENTATIVE
* Dan Tarullo. A professor at Georgetown University law school, Tarullo is an expert on trade and international economics. He was a senior White House aide to Clinton and served as a "sherpa" to meetings of the Group of Seven industrialized economies. Tarullo has said Obama supports free trade but wants to ensure American workers are protected from unfair trade practices. (Reporting by Caren Bohan; Editing by Andrea Ricci)