Reagan Indicates He Will Retain Panel of Economists

WASHINGTON — President Reagan, who had reportedly considered dissolving the Council of Economic Advisers, has indicated to his staff that he intends to retain the panel as an instrument for development of economic policy, a government official said Saturday.

Last month, Reagan had indicated in an interview with Human Events, a conservative weekly, that he might do away with the three-member council, on which some of the nation’s best-known economists have served since its establishment in 1946.

Reagan made the decision to retain the council last week as he conducted staff meetings on questions expected to arise during his second term, said the official, who commented on the condition that his name not be used.

Funds to operate the council through another fiscal year are included in the 1985 budget, which Reagan has prepared for submission to Congress after his inauguration Jan. 21, the official said. The council’s 1984 budget was $2.4 million.

The official declined to speculate on when Reagan may nominate a successor to Martin S. Feldstein, who resigned last July as head of the council to return to a teaching position at Harvard University.

Another council member, William Poole, is scheduled to leave the council this week to return to Brown University. The third member, William A. Niskanen Jr., who is serving as acting chairman, has been quoted as saying that he would resign unless he is named chairman. He could not be reached for comment Saturday.

The official confirmed a report of Reagan’s decision published in Saturday’s New York Times. But he discounted the article’s suggestion that the President is under pressure to name a new chairman soon because the legislation that established the council requires its chairman to testify before Congress on the annual economic report that Reagan will submit to Congress early next month.

‘In Galley Form’ “The report is already printed up in galley form,” the official said, “and Niskanen is available to testify. He supervised preparation of the report. Anyway, he has given no firm indication that he’s leaving.”

Final decisions on the makeup of the council in the second term “would probably be a matter the President would want to discuss with his new chief of staff,” the official said. Last Tuesday, the President said Treasury Secretary Donald T. Regan will trade jobs with White House Chief of Staff James A. Baker III.

The official said he did not believe that Reagan had reached a decision on the new chairman.

In addition to Niskanen, economists whose names have been mentioned include four members of Stanford University’s economics faculty: Martin Anderson, who has served as an adviser to Reagan and to former President Richard M. Nixon; Rita Ricardo-Campbell, Michael Boskin and Thomas Sowell.

Beryl W. Sprinkel, undersecretary of the Treasury for economic affairs, and Sidney L. Jones, undersecretary of commerce for economic affairs, have also been mentioned.