Who is Janet Yellen?

Published by Thomas Herold in Banking, Economics, Laws & Regulations

'Janet Yellen' is explained in detail and with examples in the Laws & Regulations edition of the Herold Financial Dictionary, which you can get from Amazon in Ebook or Paperback edition.

With her appointment as the first female Chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Janet Yellen has been hailed as one of the foremost living American economists. She previously served faithfully and effectively as Vice-Chairman of the Fed from 2010 until she rose to the post of head of the Fed with President Barrack Obama’s appointment in 2014.

Janet Yellen has a long and distinguished history with the Federal Reserve System that goes back decades before her appointment as Chair of the Board of Governors. She left a teaching career at prestigious Harvard University in order to take up work as an economist at the Federal Reserve in 1977 and 1978.

Janet Yellen departed from this post to become a London School of Economics lecturer in economics and political science, where she taught for nearly three years. After her initial time at the Fed, she then had a 20 year hiatus out of government service while she worked as a University of California, Berkeley professor. In this time, she met and married her husband who also worked as a professor at the school.

In 1997, Janet Yellen again found herself back in Federal Service, this time working on the White House Council of Economic Advisers for President Bill Clinton through 1999. By 2004, Yellen had advanced to become CEO and President of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. Six years later, the Fed elevated her to serve in the capacity of Vice Chair of the Board of Governors under the leadership of Ben Bernanke. President Barack Obama then nominated her to succeed Bernanke as Chairman of the Board in October of 2013.

While President of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, Janet Yellen demonstrated unusual perception concerning the country’s declining economic status. She both correctly recognized and predicted the 2008 housing crisis, almost alone among the contemporary economists to do so. During her tenure in this position, Yellen became well known as an outspoken champion of utilizing the Federal Reserve’s various powers in order to lower unemployment.

Her track record indicates that she is more willing to risk higher inflation than rival economists in successfully accomplishing this difficult higher employment rate task. When the Senate confirmed Janet Yellen to succeed Ben Bernanke in the capacity of Chair of the Board of Governors for the Federal Reserve System on January 6, 2014, she became the only woman to head up the Federal Reserve Board so far.

Yellen’s career has been not only long but also distinguished. This has given her ample time to write an exceptionally large volume of publications and papers. She has also co-written some of these with her Nobel Prize award winning economist husband Professor George Akerlof of UC Berkeley.

Janet Yellen has been widely recognized for her countless contributions with the accolades she has received in the field of economics. In the middle 1980s, she received the honor of serving as a Guggenheim Fellow. In 1997, Yale University awarded Yellen with the prestigious Wilbur Lucius Cross Medal.

Though she has argued strenuously in favor of raising historically low interest rates in the United States as Federal Reserve Chair, Janet Yellen has only been able to successfully raise them one time so far as of July 2016. Continuously erupting global economic instability and especially the turmoil resulting from the Brexit leave vote fallout has repeatedly staid her hand otherwise so far. To this point, she has been widely supported by other members of the Federal Reserve System’s voting presidents in these controversial holding on interest rate decisions.

Free Download (No Signup Required) - The 100 Most Important Financial Terms You Should Know!
This practical financial dictionary helps you understand and comprehend the 100 most important financial terms.

The term 'Janet Yellen' is included in the Laws & Regulations edition of the Herold Financial Dictionary, which you can get from Amazon in Ebook or Paperback edition.