6 Things You Need to Know About the Woman Who May Soon Be the Most Powerful Economist on Earth [View all]

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(there is still the issue of whether the Federal Reserve should have the power to set monetary policy or it should be done via a strictly governmental body. That said, Yellen appears to be a far better pick than Summers - btg).
With Larry Summers knocked out of the running for Federal Reserve chair, attention has turned to Janet Yellen, considered his main rival for the job. So far, what most Americans know about her is that she is not Larry Summers, which is no small point. Summers is a crony capitalist with strong ties to Wall Street, a history of poor judgment and multiple conflicts of interest that make him uniquely unsuited to lead the Fed. That he will not should be a relief to all.

But who is Yellen in her own right? Let’s take a look at the woman who could end up becoming the most powerful economist on the planet.

1. Yellen has an impressive resume.

Janet Yellen grew up in Brooklyn, where her dad was a doctor. She got a bachelor's degree in economics from Brown University, followed by a Ph.D. in economics from Yale University where she studied with Nobel laureate and progressive icon Joseph Stiglitz. Her professor recently praised her in a New York Times op-ed, “ Why Janet Yellen, Not Larry Summers, Should Lead the Fed” as “one of the best students I have had, in 47 years of teaching at Columbia, Princeton, Stanford, Yale, M.I.T. and Oxford.”

Yellen has taught at Harvard (1971-'76) and the London School of Economics and Political Science (1978-'80). Since 1980, she has been a faculty member at Berkeley. As a scholar, Yellen has written on a wide spectrum of macroeconomic topics, but her specialty is the causes, mechanisms and implications of unemployment.

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