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Kevin Wash, the nominee for the new Chairman of the Federal Reserve, believes that the upcoming increase in productivity may give the Federal Reserve room to lower interest rates, provided that higher productivity can achieve low inflation economic growth. However, economist Ed Yardeni also predicts that the economy will benefit from technological progress over the next decade, but he disagrees that this outcome would prove that lowering interest rates is reasonable. Yardeni wrote: "While we share Wash's optimistic view of productivity, we have fundamentally different views on what this result means for monetary policy." Yardeni believes that faster growth will raise the natural interest rate, or R* value, which will neither stimulate nor suppress the economy. He wrote: "If the Federal Reserve lowers the federal funds rate below R*, the risk is that this will encourage financial speculation and instability."