Janet Yellen

"Yellen" redirects here. For other people with this surname, see Yellen (surname).

Janet Yellen
Official portrait, 2021
78th United States Secretary of the Treasury
Incumbent
Assumed office January 26, 2021
President	Joe Biden
Deputy	Wally Adeyemo
Preceded by	Steven Mnuchin
15th Chair of the Federal Reserve
In office February 3, 2014 – February 3, 2018
President	Barack Obama Donald Trump
Deputy	Stanley Fischer
Preceded by	Ben Bernanke
Succeeded by	Jerome Powell
19th Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve
In office October 4, 2010 – February 3, 2014
President	Barack Obama
Preceded by	Donald Kohn
Succeeded by	Stanley Fischer
Member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors
In office October 4, 2010 – February 3, 2018
President	Barack Obama Donald Trump
Preceded by	Mark W. Olson
Succeeded by	Vacant
In office August 12, 1994 – February 17, 1997
President	Bill Clinton
Preceded by	Wayne Angell
Succeeded by	Edward Gramlich
11th President of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
In office June 14, 2004 – October 4, 2010
Preceded by	Robert T. Parry
Succeeded by	John C. Williams
18th Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers
In office February 18, 1997 – August 3, 1999
President	Bill Clinton
Preceded by	Joseph Stiglitz
Succeeded by	Martin Neil Baily
Personal details
Born	Janet Louise Yellen (1946-08-13) August 13, 1946 Brooklyn, New York, U.S.
Political party	Democratic
Spouse	George Akerlof ​ (m. 1978)​
Children	1
Residence(s)	San Francisco, California, U.S.
Education	Brown University (AB) Yale University (MA, PhD)
Occupation	Economist educator government official
Signature
Academic career
Field	Macroeconomics Labor economics
Institution	Harvard University London School of Economics Haas School of Business National Bureau of Economic Research Brookings Institution
School or tradition	New Keynesian economics
Doctoral advisor	James Tobin
Academic advisors	William Brainard Joseph Stiglitz
Influences	John Maynard Keynes
Information at IDEAS / RePEc

Janet Louise Yellen (born August 13, 1946) is an American economist, educator and government official who has served as the 78th United States secretary of the treasury since January 26, 2021. A member of the Democratic Party, she previously served as the 15th chair of the Federal Reserve from 2014 to 2018. She is the first woman to hold either role. She is also a professor emerita at Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, and formerly a distinguished fellow in residence at the Brookings Institution.

Yellen was a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors from 1994 to 1997 and again from 2010 to 2018. She chaired the Council of Economic Advisers under President Bill Clinton from 1997 to 1999 and was the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco from 2004 to 2010. Yellen served as vice chair of the Federal Reserve from 2010 to 2014 and was nominated by President Barack Obama to succeed Ben Bernanke as chair of the Federal Reserve from 2014 to 2018. President Joe Biden appointed her to the post of secretary of the treasury since January 26, 2021. She is the first person in American history to have led the White House Council of Economic Advisors, the Federal Reserve, and the Treasury Department.

Early life and education

Yellen was born on August 13, 1946, to a family of Polish Jewish ancestry in the Bay Ridge neighborhood of New York City's Brooklyn borough, where she also grew up. Her mother was Anna Ruth (née Blumenthal; 1907–1986), an elementary school teacher, and her father was Julius Yellen (1906–1975), a family physician, who worked from the ground floor of their home. Her mother quit her job to take care of Janet and her older brother, John. Yellen graduated from local Fort Hamilton High School in 1962; she was the class valedictorian.

Yellen graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Pembroke College in Brown University in 1967 with a bachelor's in economics. At Brown, she switched her planned major from philosophy to economics and was particularly influenced by professors George Borts and Herschel Grossman. She received her MA and PhD in economics from Yale University in 1971. Her dissertation was titled Employment, Output and Capital Accumulation in an Open Economy: A Disequilibrium Approach under the supervision of James Tobin, a noted economist who would later received the Nobel prize. As a teaching assistant, Yellen was so meticulous in taking notes during Tobin's macroeconomic class that they ended up as the unofficial textbook circulated among generations of graduate students, and known as the "Yellen Notes". Her former professor Joseph Stiglitz, another Nobel laureate, has called her one of his brightest and most memorable students. She later cited Yale Professors Tobin along with William Brainard as "lifelong mentors," who provides main intellectual foundation for her views on the economy. Yellen was the only woman among the two dozen economists who earned their doctorates from Yale in 1971.

Academic career

After receiving her Ph.D, Yellen was appointed as an assistant professor of economics at Harvard University, where she taught from 1971 to 1976. In 1977, she was recruited to become an economist with the Federal Reserve Board of Governors by Edwin M. Truman, who had known Yellen from Yale. Truman was a junior professor and heard her oral exam, and had recently taken over the Fed's Division of International Finance. She was assigned to research international monetary reform.

While at the Fed, she met her husband George Akerlof in the bank's cafeteria; they wed in 1978, less than a year later. By the time of their marriage, Akerlof had already accepted a teaching position at the London School of Economics (LSE). Yellen left her post at the Fed to accompany him, and was employed as an economics lecturer by LSE. They remained in London for two years, then returned to the United States.

In 1980, Yellen joined the faculty at the Berkeley's Haas School of Business to conduct macroeconomics research and teach undergraduate and MBA students for more than two decades, also held a joint appointment with the University of California, Berkeley's Department of Economics from 1999 to 2003. She was just the second woman at Berkeley-Haas to earn tenure in 1982, as well as the title of full professor in 1985. Yellen was the Bernard T. Rocca, Jr. Professor of International Business and Trade from 1992 to 1994 and was named the Eugene E. and Catherine M. Trefethen Professor of Business Administration and Professor of Economics in 1999. During her time as active faculty member, Prof. Yellen earned the Haas School's outstanding teaching award twice. She subsequently became professor emeritus at UC Berkeley.

Yellen has also served as an adviser to the Congressional Budget Office, the Brookings Panel on Economic Activity and the National Science Foundation’s Panel in Economics. She was a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

In August 1994, Yellen took leave of absence from Berkeley for five years when she went on public service.

Research and publications

Yellen has had a remarkable academic career, largely focused on analysis of the mechanisms of unemployment and labor markets, monetary and fiscal policies, and international trade. She's written a few widely cited papers, often collaborating with her husband professor George Akerlof on research.

Since 1980s, Yellen with Akerlof address what's known in the economics literature as "efficiency wage theory" – the idea that paying people more than the market wage does, in fact, increase their productivity. Their 1990 paper, entitled "The Fair-Wage Effort Hypothesis and Unemployment," christen "the fair wage-effort hypothesis," considered by economists a significant contribution to the topic: "is a precursor to the efficiency wage literature", "It had an influence, although the work on efficiency wage theory has had a bigger influence." Akerlof and Yellen introduced the gift-exchange game, a model in which argue that workers who receive less than what they perceive to be a fair wage will purposely work less hard as a way to take revenge on their employer.

Another important work, "An Analysis of Out-of-Wedlock Childbearing in the United States" co-written with Akerlof and Michael Katz and published in 1996, aims to explain why out of wedlock births had grown considerably in previous decades in the United States. Research study led to a theory called "reproductive technology shock," arguing that the increased availability of both abortion and contraception in the late 1960s and early 1970s eroded the social norms surrounding sex, pregnancy and marriage, leading to a sharp decline in the stigma of unwed motherhood.

Federal Reserve (1994–1997)

On April 22, 1994, President Bill Clinton announced his intention to nominate Dr. Yellen as a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, alongside Alan Blinder, who served as vice chairman, the first Democratic appointees to the Board since 1980. Hovever, President Clinton did not play a direct role in the selection process, delegating most of the responsibility to national economic adviser Robert Rubin, Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen and CEA Chair Laura Tyson. The group settled on Yellen's candidacy after an exhaustive search that at one point included nearly 50 names. On July 22, 1994, at her confirmation hearing before the Senate Banking Committee, Yellen said that Fed policies should keep the economy growing as much as possible without accelerating inflation but avoid to take a clear position on prospect of further increases in interest rates. Banking Committee approved her nomination by a vote of 18 to 1. The only dissenting vote came from Senator Lauch Faircloth, Republican of North Carolina, who had told that her concerns should be limited to "inflation, inflation and inflation". Nomination was confirmed by the United States Senate by a vote of 94–6. Yellen succeeded Republican Wayne Angell on August 12, 1994.

In July 1996, the Federal Reserve under Chairman Alan Greenspan, resisted pressure to raise interest rates as unemployment declined. But Yellen marshaled academic research to dissuade Greenspan from committing the Fed to a zero inflation policy and demonstrate that the central bank should seek to moderate inflation rather than eliminate it. The study showed that a little inflation rate in the 2-4 percent range actually was better basis to minimize unemployment and increase economic growth than the goal of zero.

On February 17, 1997, Yellen left the Federal Reserve to become chair of the Council of Economic Advisers.

Council of Economic Advisers (1997–1999)

Yellen chaired President Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) from February 18, 1997, replacing Joseph Stiglitz in office. She was confirmed unanimously by the Senate, the second woman to hold the job, following Laura Tyson. While at the CEA, she also chaired the Economic Policy Committee of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development from 1997 to 1999.

During her time with the Council of Economic Advisors, Yellen oversaw a landmark report "Explaining Trends in the Gender Wage Gap" focused on the gender pay divide in June 1998. Within this study, the Council analyzed data from 1969 to 1996 to determine the cause for women to earn substantially less than men. By observing trends attributable to issues like occupation/industry as well as familial status, it was determined that while the Equal Pay Act of 1963 was a step forward, there was no explanation as to why there was a 25 percent difference between average pay for women and men – an improvement from the 40 percent gap two decades earlier. It was concluded that this gap had no correlation with differences in productivity and, as such, was the repercussions of discrimination within the workforce.

In June 1999, Yellen announced that she was resigning from the CEA for personal reasons and would return to teaching at UC Berkeley.

Return to the Federal Reserve (2004–2018)

Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco

On June 14, 2004, Yellen was assigned as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, ensuing Robert T. Parry, the first woman to hold those position. She was a voting member of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) on a rotating basis once every three years. During her time at the San Francisco Fed, the largest of the 12 Federal Reserve Banks in terms of population and economic output, she spoke publicly and in meetings of the Fed's monetary policy committee, regarding her concerns about the potential consequences of the boom in housing prices. She also sounded alarms with Washington colleagues about banks' heavy concentration in risky construction and home-development loans. However, Yellen did not lead the San Francisco Fed to "move to check [the] increasingly indiscriminate lending" of Countrywide Financial, the largest lender in the U.S. On June 5, 2009, Yellen said that Federal Reserve should consider raising interest rates earlier to prevent another housing bubble. She argued that higher short-term interest rates probably went against the expansion of a bubble in certain circumstances, like restrain the demand for housing and high-risk mortgages.

In July 2009, Yellen was mentioned as a potential successor to Chairman Ben Bernanke when his term set to expire, before he was re-nominated by President Barack Obama. On October 4, 2010, she left San Francisco Fed to take appointment as vice chair of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.

Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve

Yellen takes the oath of office adninistered by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, October 4, 2010

On April 28, 2010, President Obama nominated Yellen to succeed Donald Kohn as vice chair of the Federal Reserve. In July, the Senate Banking Committee voted 17–6 to confirm her, though the top Republican on the panel, Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, voted no, saying he believed Yellen had an "inflationary bias". At the same time, on the heels of related testimony by Fed Chairman Bernanke, FOMC voting member James B. Bullard of the St. Louis Fed stated that the U.S. economy was "at risk of becoming 'enmeshed in a Japanese-style deflationary outcome within the next several years.'"

Bullard's statement was interpreted as a possible shift within the FOMC balance between inflation hawks and doves. Yellen's pending confirmation, along with those of Peter A. Diamond and Sarah Bloom Raskin to fill vacancies, was seen as possibly furthering such a shift in the FOMC. All three nominations were seen as "on track to be confirmed by the Senate".

On September 29, 2010, Yellen, alongside Raskin, confirmed by the Senate on a voice vote, to be a Member of the Board of Governors, and Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve System. On October 4, 2010, both were sworn in as fed governors, while Yellen also took the oath of office as vice chair of the Board for a four-year term. Simultaneously, she began a 14-year term as a member of the Federal Reserve Board filling a vacant seat last held by Mark W. Olson. Yellen was the second woman to hold the No. 2 post at the Fed, after Alice Rivlin, who had that role from 1996 to 1999.

Yellen as vice chair, by contrast with her predecessors, has acted more as an independent force within the institution. She has trying to persuade Bernanke and the rest of the committee to adopt her preferred course for monetary policy, advocating more aggressive steps to pump money into the economy to bring down unemployment. In January 2012, the Fed announced its own inflation target of two percent a year, after a long campaign by Bernanke and Yellen, who was an early supporter of inflation targeting in the face of opposition from Chairman Greenspan since 1990s.

Yellen was considered as the front-runner to succeed Bernanke as chair of the Federal Reserve when his second term ceased. The other leading candidate to the post was Lawrence Summers, a former President Clinton's treasury secretary and former director of President Obama's National Economic Council. During the race, Summers has come under fire for his support for deregulating parts of the banking sector while he served in the Clinton administration, he also sparked controversy for his comments on women's aptitude in math and science while the president of Harvard University in 2005. In July 2013, Senate Democrats were circulating a letter that has been signed by roughly a third of the 54 Democratic and allied senators, largely represent the liberal wing of the Senate Democratic Caucus, urging President Obama to appoint Yellen as chairwoman of the central bank. In addition, more than 500 professional economists from more than 200 colleges and universities across the United States signed an open letter in support of her candidacy for Fed chair and sent it to the White House. On September 15, 2013, after weeks of opposition to his potential nomination, Summers withdrew his name from consideration for the position.

Chair of the Federal Reserve

Yellen delivers opening statement at the FOMC press conference, December 17, 2014

Yellen conversation with IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde, July 2, 2014

Yellen during a weekly meeting with Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, February 2014

On October 9, 2013, Yellen was officially nominated to replace Bernanke as chair of the Federal Reserve, the first vice chair to be elevated to that post; via announcement, President Obama called her "one of the nation’s foremost economists and policymakers", who "exceptionally well-qualified for this role". During the nomination hearings held on November 14, 2013, Yellen defended the more than $3 trillion in stimulus funds that the central bank had been injecting into the U.S. economy. She also said that it is important for the Fed to try to detect asset bubbles, and that if she saw one, she would work to address it.

On December 20, 2013, the U.S. Senate voted 59–34 for cloture on Yellen's nomination. On January 6, 2014, she was confirmed as chair of the Federal Reserve by a vote of 56–26, the narrowest margin ever for the position. In addition to being the first woman to lead U.S. central bank, or any major central bank, Yellen was also the first Democratic nominee to hold the job since Paul Volcker became chairman in 1979 (via President Jimmy Carter). She's notable also for being arguably the most liberal Fed leader since Marriner S. Eccles, who was appointed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Great Depression. Until her appointment there has been only one female head of the central bank in history of Group of Eight ("G8") countries – Russia's Elvira Nabiullina. After being unanimously elected by the Federal Open Market Committee as its chair on January 30, 2014, she took office on February 3, 2014. In her 2014 semiannual testimony on monetary policy, Yellen said that while real estate, equities, and corporate bond prices "have risen appreciably and valuation metrics have increased" they were "generally in line with historical norms"; Yellen noted some concerns about valuations of "lower-rated corporate debt" (i.e., junk bonds), and noted that she and the Fed were monitoring trends, but did not believe that a so-called "everything bubble" was forming.

With Yellen as chair, the Federal Reserve increased its key interest rate on December 16, 2015. This was the first time the key interest rate was increased since 2006. That move was largely expected, because extraordinarily low interest rates for an extremely long time may contribute to financial instability and pose threat to economy. It considered, in some way, departure from previous controversial fed policy known as Greenspan put. During her tenure, the Fed has gradually raised rates four additional times, leaving its key rate in a still-low range of 1.25 percent to 1.5 percent – well low by historical standards. However, Fed policymakers once again have the ability to cut the rates to stimulate growth in case if the economy slows.

After the 2016 presidential election, Yellen gives a strong defense of the Dodd–Frank Act at her Joint Economic Committee testimony, standing in opposition to the incoming President Donald Trump plans to review the landmark legislation. She argued that it would be inappropriate to weaken or repeal the law designed to prevent a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis.

Trump considered renominating Yellen for another term, but instead picked Fed Governor Jerome Powell, a Republican, to run the Federal Reserve once her term ended on February 3, 2018. That move broke a decades-long presidential tradition of cross-partisan central bank chair appointments. After Trump's decision, Yellen announced that she would leave the Fed at the end of her term as chair. She was the briefest-serving Fed chair since G. William Miller from 1978 to 1979, and first in nearly 40 years to not receive a second term.

On February 2, 2018, her last day in office, Chair Yellen enforced unprecedented sanctions placed on Wells Fargo, the third largest U.S. bank, with a consent order that restricted the firm from future growth until the organization fixed its internal problems. The move came in response to a string of "widespread consumer abuses and compliance breakdowns" at the company, including a fake accounts scandal. It marks the first time the Federal Reserve has imposed a cap on the entire assets of a financial institution.

Yellen has been called one of the most successful chairs of the Federal Reserve System from the perspective of the labor markets. During her term, the unemployment rate has dropped from 6.7 percent to 4.1 percent, the lowest in 17 years. It marks the first time the economy has added jobs throughout every month of any Fed chair's tenure. Yellen completed her time at the Fed with the lowest final unemployment rate of any Fed chair since William McChesney Martin in 1970. Under her tenure, the U.S. unemployment rate fell more than during any other chair's term in modern history when compared to the beginning of her term to its end. It has declined 2.6 percentage points, maximum in the post-World War II era. Meanwhile, inflation remains below the Fed's annual two percent target, which also led to suggestion that the Federal Reserve could have done more to bolster the economy without the risk of price increases.

Dr. Yellen holds a unique place in Federal Reserve history. In addition to being the first woman to lead the institution, she was also the first person ever to have served at the nation's central bank system with stints as a Fed Reserve chair (from 2014 to 2018), vice chair (from 2010 to 2014), president of the regional Federal Reserve Bank (at the San Francisco Fed, from 2004 to 2010), Fed governor (from 1994 to 1997), as well as Fed staff economist (from 1977 to 1978).

After the Federal Reserve (2018–2020)

Yellen delivers her farewell speech to Federal Reserve staff, February 1, 2018

On February 2, 2018, the Brookings Institution announced that Yellen would be joining the think tank as a distinguished fellow in residence with the Economic Studies program, effective February 5, 2018. She's been affiliated with the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy at Brookings. Yellen was on a leave from position since selected as nominee to head the Treasury Department.

On June 27, 2017, Yellen stated that she did not expect another financial crisis "in our lifetime"; explaining that this assumption can be made due to her belief that banks are "very much stronger" as a result of Federal Reserve oversight. However, on December 10, 2018, in conversation with Paul Krugman at the City University of New York, she warned of the possibility of another financial crisis by citing "gigantic holes in the system" after her departure from the Federal Reserve.

On February 25, 2019, Yellen criticized President Trump's economic policies. When asked if she believes Trump has "a grasp of economic policy", Yellen said "No, I do not." In an interview with Marketplace, Yellen explained that she doubts that Trump could articulate the Federal Reserve's explicit goals of "maximum employment and price stability". Yellen pointed out Trump's claims that the Federal Reserve's goals involve trade, which she explains to be objectively false. This interview was a change in tone for Yellen, who traditionally handled her differences with Trump in a neutral manner.

On July 17, 2020, at the hearing of a select coronavirus subcommittee that was set up by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, former Fed Chairs Bernanke and Yellen testifying to the United States Congress about the economic-policy response to the negative impact of the coronavirus pandemic. They urged lawmakers to act aggressively with fiscal stimulus on three areas: extending the supplementary unemployment payments; providing additional financial assistance to hard-hit states and local governments; and investing in the medical response to the pandemic. The same comitment to stimulus, she expressed in op-ed for the New York Times with Jared Bernstein, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

On August 13, 2020, it has been reported that Yellen was among a handful of economists who briefed former Vice President Joe Biden presumptive Democratic nominee for president and his chosen running mate Sen. Kamala Harris on economic issues, but not officially joined the presidential campaign. The meeting made headlines for being one of the first times the Biden campaign announced who it was turning to for economic expertise. But few at the time predicted Yellen for any president's Cabinet posts. In the end, however, she edged out other top contenders to become the Biden's Treasury chief, including Fed Board Gov. Lael Brainard and Roger W. Ferguson Jr., a former vice chairman at the central bank.

Between 2018 and 2020, Yellen had received over $7 million in speaking fees from financial companies such as Barclays, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and the hedge fund Citadel after leaving the Federal Reserve. She's pledged to get official permission from Office of Government Ethics to participate in substantive issues involving such firms to avoid any conflict of interest.

Secretary of the Treasury (2021–present)

Nomination and confirmation

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris receive an economic briefing from Secretary Yellen in the Oval Office, January 29, 2021

On November 30, 2020, President Biden announced he would nominate Yellen to serve as secretary of the treasury in his Cabinet. Despite been a highly respected figure across the political spectrum, expected to win confirmation easily, she was considered as unusual pick for position because of her lack of experience in political maneuvering. Unlike predecessors, she’s viewed more as an academic economist than a traditional politician used to lawmaker horse-trading and dealmaking; qualities that could be crucial to achieve goals of Biden's economic agenda in a deeply partisan Congress. All living former U.S. treasury secretaries from George Shultz to Jack Lew endorsed Yellen to the position in bipartisan letter calling on Senate to swiftly confirm her.

The Senate Finance Committee unanimously approved Yellen's candidature by a 26–0 vote on January 22, 2021. The full U.S. Senate confirmed her nomination with a vote of 84–15 (with one abstention, Marco Rubio, R-FL) on January 25, 2021. With her oath of office administered by Vice President Harris the next day, Secretary Yellen became the first woman to serve as U.S. secretary of the treasury, and the first person in American history to lead the three most powerful economic bodies in the Federal government of the United States: the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve, and the White House Council of Economic Advisers.

Yellen was appointed as the first female treasury secretary of the United States, and only two other women – France's Christine Lagarde and Canada's Chrystia Freeland – have held similar positions within the Group of Seven ("G7") nations.

Tenure

Proposed international tax reform

Yellen meeting with German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz, July 2, 2021

In April 2021, Yellen proposed a global minimum corporate tax rate, to prevent profit shifting used by multinational companies for purpose of tax avoidance. On June 5, 2021, finance ministers from the Group of Seven (G7) – the major advanced economies – have reached a historic agreement to reform the global tax system, agreed to back a minimum global corporate tax rate of at least 15%; while French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire calling it "a starting point" that could be increased in the future. On June 10, 2021, Treasury Secretary Yellen joined with four foreign counterparts in penned op-ed that described the new accord as "a historic opportunity to end the race to the bottom in corporate taxation, restoring government resources at a time when they are most needed". On July 1, 2021, a US-backed negotiations within the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to create wider global tax parity won support from a group of 130 nations, representing more than 90 percent of global GDP, establishing a new framework for international tax reform. On July 10, 2021, financial leaders from the G20 countries come to an agreement on plans to put an end to global tax havens and force multinational corporations to pay an appropriate share of tax wherever they operate and create a "more stable and fairer international tax architecture".

On October 8, 2021, more than 130 countries, including several low-tax jurisdictions that had resisted the pact, enforced through OECD a landmark agreement to set a global minimum tax rate of 15% from 2023 for companies around the world. It said the deal could bring in an extra $150 billion of tax revenues a year. Although implementation of the treaty will need to be ratified via a two-thirds majority in the evenly divided US Senate, as well to pass domestic legislation in each of the signed countries.

Debt ceiling crisis

On July 23, 2021, Yellen sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other congressional leaders, urged lawmakers to increase or suspend the nation's debt limit as soon as possible before it will hit its statutory limit on Aug. 1, and government will be unable to pay its bills. She warned Congress that failure to meet those obligations would cause "irreparable harm" to the U.S. economy, and Treasury Department would begin taking “extraordinary measures” to prevent the United States from a government shutdown or even a debt default.

On September 19, 2021, Yellen, in the Wall Street Journal op-ed, called to address debt ceiling with bipartisan support otherwise, sometime in October, Treasury exhausts its cash reserves which would trigger a historic financial crisis and "permanently" weaken America. After Congress adopted a short-term debt-ceiling bill to raise the country’s borrowing into early December, Yellen said that it is imperative that lawmakers act with responsibility and provides longer-term certainty for the government. On November 1, 2021, Yellen expresses willingness to consider solutions to debt crisis without GOP support if necessary, using a budget procedure of reconciliation as viable alternative.

On December 16, 2021, President Biden signed a debt ceiling increase into law, preventing the first-ever U.S. default, a day after the Treasury’s previously estimated deadline to address the issue. Congressional legislation expected to allow the government to cover its financial obligations beyond 2022 midterm elections was passed nearly party line.

Economic philosophy

Yellen is widely considered to be a "dove" on monetary policy (i.e., more concerned with unemployment than with inflation) and as such generally favoring lower, rather than higher, Federal Reserve interest rates. However, on fiscal policy, publications often referred to her as "somewhat" of a deficit hawk. Prior to the COVID-19 recession, she expressed concern about the U.S. fiscal path, especially on U.S. debt; in 2018, Yellen said, "If I had a magic wand, I would raise taxes and cut retirement spending"; the following year, she again suggested that she favored both raising revenue and making changes to the Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security programs to control spending. In September 2021, at a House Financial Services Committee hearing, Yellen lends support to effort for complete removal of the debt ceiling, arguing that the borrowing cap is "very destructive" and poses unnecessary threat to the American economy.

She has supported tighter financial regulation to reduce systemic risks arising from vulnerabilities in the financial system. As chair of the Group of 30 Working Group on Climate Change and Finance, she addressed climate risks, supporting a phase-in carbon pricing to accelerate a shift to net zero carbon emissions.

Yellen is a Keynesian economist and has been described as a "Keynesian to her fingertips"; during the Great Recession, she "warned against an over-hasty removal of stimulus"; "insisted that the Fed pay as much attention to unemployment as to inflation"; and "believes the state has a duty to tackle poverty and inequality". When her appointment as Treasury secretary was announced in December 2020, Yellen was viewed by Wall Street "as a Treasury secretary who will push hard for expansionary policies aimed at boosting growth, profits and share prices", although the ability of Yellen to push through her preferred fiscal policies was seen as likely to be constrained by congressional gridlock.

Honors and awards

Dr. Yellen, has received numerous honors in recognition of her career in academia and politics. These include:

Scholastic

Chancellor, visitor, governor, rector, and fellowships

Location	Date	Organization	Position
New York	1986-1987	John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation	Guggenheim Fellowship
Connecticut	2000-2006	Yale Corporation	Alumni Fellow
California	2003-2004	Western Economic Association International	President
Tennessee	2004-2005	American Economic Association	Vice President Served with Angus Deaton
California	2012–present	University of California, Berkeley	Berkeley Fellow
Tennessee	2020-2021	American Economic Association	President

Honorary degrees

Location	Date	School	Degree	Gave Commencement Address
Rhode Island	May 25, 1998	Brown University	Doctor of Laws (LL.D.)	Yes
New York	May 27, 2000	Bard College	Doctor of Humane Letters (DHL)	No
New York	May 21, 2014	New York University	Doctor of Commercial Science (DCSc)	Yes
England	May 15, 2015	London School of Economics	Doctor of Science (DSc)	No
Connecticut	May 15, 2015	Yale University	Doctor of Social Science (DSSc)	No
England	November 19, 2015	University of Warwick	Doctor of Laws (LL.D.)	No
Maryland	December 19, 2016	University of Baltimore	Doctor of Laws (LL.D.)	Yes
Israel	June 5, 2019	Tel Aviv University	Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)	No
Michigan	December 15, 2019	University of Michigan	Doctor of Laws (LL.D.)	No
Pennsylvania	May 17, 2021	University of Pennsylvania	Doctor of Laws (LL.D.)	No

Memberships and fellowships

Location	Date	Organization	Position
Massachusetts	1999-2010	National Bureau of Economic Research	Research Associate (Monetary Economics)
Massachusetts	2001–present	American Academy of Arts and Sciences	Member
New York	2002-2010	Economists for Peace and Security	Trustee
New York	2005–present	Council on Foreign Relations	Member
District of Columbia	2009–present	Group of Thirty	Senior Member
Tennessee	2012–present	American Economic Association	Distinguished Fellow
Connecticut	2014–present	Econometric Society	Fellow
District of Columbia	2015–present	National Association for Business Economics	NABE Fellow
England	2016–present	British Academy	Honorary Fellow

Awards

Location	Date	Organisation	Award
Connecticut	May 26, 1997	Yale University	Wilbur Cross Medal
District of Columbia	October 11, 2010	National Association for Business Economics	Adam Smith Award
New York	January 22, 2015	Hobart and William Smith Colleges	Elizabeth Blackwell Award
Massachusetts	May 27, 2016	Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study	Radcliffe Medal
Rhode Island	May 5, 2017	Brown University	The President's Medal
Illinois	November 7, 2017	Institute of Government and Public Affairs	The Paul H. Douglas Award for Ethics in Government Awarded with Ben Bernanke
California	February 2, 2019	University of California, Santa Cruz	The Foundation Medal
Connecticut	March 20, 2019	Chief Executive Leadership Institute	The Legend in Leadership Award
Massachusetts	September 21, 2019	Brandeis International Business School	Dean's Medal
Missouri	October 10, 2019	Truman Library Institute	Truman Medal for Economic Policy

Rankings

Name of publisher, name of listicle, year(s) listed, and placement result

Publisher	Listicle	Year(s)	Result	Ref.
Barron's	100 Most Influential Women in U.S. Finance	2020	Placed
		2021	Placed
Bloomberg Markets	50 Most Influential	2012	Placed
		2013	Placed
		2014	Placed
		2015	1st
		2016	8th
Forbes	Forbes list of the world's most powerful people	2014	6th
		2015	7th
		2016	6th
	Forbes list of the world's 100 most powerful women	2014	2nd
		2015	4th
		2016	3rd
		2021	39th
Global Finance	The Central Banker Report Cards	2015	A-
		2016	A-
		2017	A
Time	Time 100	2014	Placed
		2015	Placed
		2017	Placed

Other recognition

• In March 2018, The Janet L. Yellen professorship was endowed by Charles D. Ellis at the Yale School of Management, named in honor of Yellen. Professor Andrew Metrick has been invested as the inaugural Janet L. Yellen Professor of Finance and Management at the School.
• In December 2018, Federal Reserve Board presented an annual Janet L. Yellen Award for Excellence in Community Development to recognize the exemplary work of Federal Reserve System staff, and intended as honor of former chair Yellen's commitment to public service. Ariel Cisneros of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, has been named the first recipient of the newly created Award.

Personal life

Yellen is married to George Akerlof, an economist, 2001 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences laureate, professor at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University, and professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. Yellen and Akerlof first crossed paths at the Fed in the fall of 1977 and married in June 1978, less than a year after meeting. They have one child, a son named Robert, who was born in 1981. Robert Akerlof, an economist by training himself, earning an AB degree in economics and mathematics, summa cum laude with special distinction, from Yale University in 2003 and received a PhD in economics from Harvard University in 2009, where he was a presidential scholar. He works as an associate professor of economics at the University of Warwick. Yellen and Akerlof have often collaborated on research, including topics such as poverty, unemployment and a paper on the costs of out-of-wedlock childbearing. One of their most talked-about papers at Berkeley, on why lower wages do not always lead to higher employment, came from the personal experience of hiring a nanny for the first time. Yellen says Akerlof has been her biggest intellectual influence. Both frequently state that their lone disagreement is that she is a bit more supportive of free trade than he is.

Yellen has an estimated net worth of $20 million, accrued from stock holdings, speaking engagements and various government and academic positions. In February 2021, she divested holdings in corporations including Pfizer, ConocoPhillips and AT&T, among others when appointed to public office at U.S. Treasury.

Yellen is a philatelist, having reported a collection of postage stamps valued between $15,000 and $50,000 in her OGE financial disclosures released in 2014 and 2021.

In popular culture

"Who's Yellen Now?" is a song by musician Dessa, commissioned by Marketplace, following the joking suggestion by then President-elect Biden that Lin-Manuel Miranda should write a Hamiltonesque musical about Yellen, reflecting the historic nature of her nomination as nation's first female secretary of the Treasury, on December 1, 2020.

On the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live, Yellen has been parodied by actress Kate McKinnon since 2021.

Selected works

Books

• Akerlof, George A.; Yellen, Janet L., eds. (October 31, 1986). Efficiency Wage Models of the Labor Market. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/cbo9780511559594. ISBN 978-0-521-31284-4.
• Blinder, Alan S.; Yellen, Janet L. (2001). The Fabulous Decade: Macroeconomic Lessons from the 1990s. New York: The Century Foundation Press. ISBN 0-87078-467-6. OCLC 47018413.

Articles

• Adams, William James; Yellen, Janet L. (August 1976). "Commodity Bundling and the Burden of Monopoly". The Quarterly Journal of Economics. 90 (3): 475–498. doi:10.2307/1886045. JSTOR 1886045.
• Akerlof, George A.; Yellen, J. L. (January 1985). "A Near-Rational Model of the Business Cycle, with Wage and Price Inertia". The Quarterly Journal of Economics. 100: 823–838. doi:10.1093/qje/100.Supplement.823. ISSN 0033-5533.
• Akerlof, George A.; Yellen, Janet L. (May 1990). "The Fair Wage-Effort Hypothesis and Unemployment". The Quarterly Journal of Economics. 105 (2): 255–283. doi:10.2307/2937787. JSTOR 2937787.

See also

• List of female United States Cabinet members

External links

Official

• Biography at the United States Department of the Treasury
• Biography at the Federal Reserve
• Clinton White House biography (archived)
• Janet L. Yellen at the Brookings Institution
• Janet L. Yellen at the Haas School of Business

Other

• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Profile and papers at Research Papers in Economics
• Janet Yellen collected news and commentary at The Guardian