Janet Yellen | |
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Chair of the Federal Reserve | |
Assumed office February 3, 2014 |
|
President |
Barack Obama Donald Trump |
Deputy | Stanley Fischer |
Preceded by | Ben Bernanke |
Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve System | |
In office October 4, 2010 – February 3, 2014 |
|
President | Barack Obama |
Preceded by | Donald Kohn |
Succeeded by | Stanley Fischer |
President of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco | |
In office June 14, 2004 – October 4, 2010 |
|
Preceded by | Robert Parry |
Succeeded by | John Williams |
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 Baily |
Personal details | |
Born |
Janet Louise Yellen August 13, 1946 New York City, New York, U.S. |
Political party | Democratic |
Spouse(s) | George Akerlof |
Education |
Brown University (BA) Yale University (MA, PhD) |
Janet Louise Yellen (born August 13, 1946) is an American economist. She is the Chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, previously serving as Vice Chair from 2010 to 2014. Previously, she was President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco; Chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers under President Bill Clinton; and business professor at the University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business.
Yellen was nominated by President Obama to succeed Ben Bernanke as Chair of the United States Federal Reserve. On January 6, 2014, the U.S. Senate confirmed Yellen's nomination. She was sworn in on February 3, 2014, making her the first woman to hold the position.
Yellen was born to a Jewish family in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Anna (née Blumenthal) and Julius Yellen, a physician. Her father's family originally came from the Polish town of Suwałki. She graduated from Fort Hamilton High School in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn. She graduated summa cum laude from Pembroke College in Brown University with a degree in economics in 1967. At Brown, Yellen had switched her planned major from philosophy to economics and was particularly influenced by professors George Borts and Herschel Grossman. She received her Ph.D. 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 Nobel laureates James Tobin and Joseph Stiglitz, who later called Yellen one of his brightest and most memorable students. Two dozen economists earned their Ph.D from Yale in 1971, but Yellen was the only woman in that doctoral class.