The Federal Reserve is set to lose one of its more diligent skeptics when Esther George, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, retires next month.

Ms. George began her tenure at the central bank 40 years ago in the midst of the last episode of very high U.S. inflation. She became the Kansas City Fed’s president in 2011, when the economy was mired in the protracted and difficult recovery from the global financial crisis.