Biography for Janet Yellen
Janet Yellen was born on August 14, 1946, in Brooklyn, New York. Her mother was a teacher and the father a doctor. She attended Fort Hamilton High school. She excelled in many subjects and became the editor of the institution's newspaper and graduated as a valedictorian in 1963. She then attended Brown University and obtained a bachelor’s degree in economics in 1967. She proceeded to Yale University and received a Ph.D. in 1971. She married George Akerlof, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley and an economic noble prize winner in 1978. Yellen has one adult son, Robert Akerlof.
After obtaining her Ph.D., Yellen began teaching at various universities. She served as an assistant professor at Harvard University between 1971 and 1976. From 1977 to1978, Yellen joined the Board of Governors as an economist and acceded to the Department of London School of Economics and Political Science between 1978 and 1980. She also served at the University of California at Berkeley for years. Later, Yellen left the University of California-Berkeley in the mid-1990s and joined the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and served as the governor of the board between 1994 and 1997. She acceded to the White House Council Economic Advisers during the time of President Bill Clinton.
Yellen was also a research associate for the National Institute of Economics Research and served in the Pacific Council of Business Economics as a member of the board of directors, the Guggenheim, and MIT. In 2004, Yellen became the CEO and President of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. She showed a remarkable insight and was among the few economist who predicted the 2008 housing crisis.
In 2010, Yellen joined the Federal Reserve Bank as the Vice Chairperson for four years that marked the beginning of her fourteen years of been a board member and leader in the Federal Reserve Bank. She became outspoken concerning unemployment and used the powers of the Fed to reduce it and took calculated risks on the same. Yellen convinced the Fed to use two percent annual inflation targeting approach.
She served as a member of the Council on Foreign Regulations and also in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Besides, Yellen has been the president of the Western Economic Association, a fellow at the Yale Corporation, and the president of the American Economic Association. During her career, she received various academic honors. Among the most notable is the Wilbur Cross Medal from Yale University in 1997, honorary degrees like the doctor of law from Brown University in 1998, and doctor of humane letters from Brown and Bard College in 2000 respectively. She also featured among the fifty most influential people by the Bloomberg Market Magazine in 2012, and also listed at the second most powerful women in the world by the Forbes magazine in 2014. Received a special social science award in the category of the honorary degrees by the Yale University in 2015. The Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute placed her position one among the top one hundred public investors in 2015.
President Barrack Obama nominated Yellen in October 2013 as the chairperson of the Federal Reserve Bank with advice from Democrats citing her excellence resume, dedication to ending unemployment, and her impeccable record in bank regulation. She pledged to strive for maximum employment, stability in prices, the financial systems upon her confirmation (Cussen). On January 6, 2014, the Senate by a vote of 56-26 approved her nomination and became the first woman in the history of Federal Reserve Board to take the position of the chairperson. She was the first Democrat to lead the Fed for over thirty years in a row.
She takes credit for establishing the Federal Reserve Bank communication policy and the quarterly press by the chairperson and advocating for zero interest policy and the continuation of bond purchases (Kolhatkar and Philips).
Philosophy
Yellen and her husband are both Keynesian economists. In this regard, they firmly believe markets have fundamental flaws and only government regulations can correct them. They came up with a model showing how companies that seek to maximize profits should pay wages above the minimum. The model was the most significant contributor to the foundation of the New Keynesian Philosophy.
The advocates of the New Keynesian theory opine that prices adjust slowly to short-term fluctuations in the economy. The new theory also explains why the government may need to intervene due to the failure of markets and inefficiencies that arise. She supported Bernanke’s unorthodox policies to address the Great Recession something that shows how committed she was to influence the markets through government policies.
Publications
Yellen alongside Alan Binder published ‘The Fabulous Decade: Macroeconomic Lessons from the 1990s’ in 1991. Articles included ‘East Germans In From the Cold: ’ alongside her husband, Andrew Rose, and Hessnius in 1991; ‘Monitory Policy Goals and Strategy’ in July 1996, the “Continuing Importance of Trade Liberalization’ 1998. “Is there a J-curve,’ published in 1989 alongside Rose Andrew, and ‘Efficiency Wage Models of Unemployment” published in 1984, among others.
Works cited
Cussen, Mark P. "Janet Yellen: Background And Philosophy | Investopedia." Investopedia. 2013. Web. 01 May 2016. <http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/101613/janet- yellen-background-and-philosophy.asp>.
Philips, Mathew., and Kolhatkar, Sheelah. "Who Is Janet Yellen? A Look at the Front-Runner for the Next Fed Chairman." Bloomberg.com. Bloomberg. Web. 01 May 2016. <http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-09-19/who-is-janet-yellen-a-look-at-the- front-runner-for-the-next-fed-chairman>.
