WASHINGTON -- Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker will lead a panel of business and economic advisers who will give regular advice to the new administration, President-elect Barack Obama announced today.

Volcker will chair the Economic Advisory Board which will meet regularly for at least the first two years of Obama's presidency. The other panel members will be named later. University of Chicago economist Austan Goolsbee, who has been named a member of the Council of Economic Advisers, will be the board's executive director.

Volcker chaired the Fed from 1979-1987 and he tamed inflation with high interest rates, which triggered a recession in the short term but paved the way for the economic recovery.

"The walls of the echo chamber can sometimes keep out fresh voices and new ways of thinking - and those who serve in Washington don't always have a ground-level sense of which programs and policies are working for people, and which aren't. This board will provide that perspective to me and my Administration, with an infusion of ideas from across the country and from all sectors of our economy - input that will be informed by members' first-hand observations of how our efforts are impacting the daily lives of our families,'' Obama said at news conference in Chicago.