Predsednik Barack Obama naj bi danes popoldne imenoval Janet Yellen na čelo Fed (o celotni javnomnenjski kolobociji sem večkrat pisal). Spodaj je en tak zelo prijazen komentar o njneih akademskih in strokovnih kvalitetah, ki ga je za Bloomberg napisal Justin Wolfers, profesor na University of Michigan. Malokdo o Yellenovi ve, da je bil njen mentor pri doktoratu nobelovec James Tobin in da je poročena z nobelovcem Georgeom Akerlofom, kar je najbrž neke vrste dokaz, da jo javnost pozna predvsem po njenih strokovnih referencah in ne po tovrstnih kurtoaznostih.

Yellen is quite simply more qualified for the job than any of her predecessors. She’s an imaginative and technically adept economist possessed of a brilliant and precise mind. As a researcher, she has made fundamental contributions to our understanding of unemployment and the importance of smoothing out the ups and downs of the economy. She has demonstrated an ability to navigate political corridors, having served successfully as the chairman of President Bill Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers.

She’s also battle-tested, having worked in key policy roles through both the Asian financial crisis and the recent global financial crisis. She has spent most of the past two decades as a leading voice within the Fed, initially as a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, then as president and chief executive officer of the San Francisco Federal Reserve Board, and over the past four years as vice chairman of the Federal Reserve.

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On a personal note, I’ve known Janet Yellen and her husband George Akerlof, a Nobel laureate in economics, for more than a decade. They are both deeply passionate about the capacity for economics to improve people’s lives, and are also refreshingly human. Yellen shares the ability of her doctoral adviser, the late Nobel laureate James Tobin, to translate dry economic data into an understanding of the lives that those numbers depict. Hence, her appointment reflects concern for Main Street, though it comes with a deep understanding of Wall Street.

Preberite celoten komentar v: Justin Wolfers, Bloomberg