EMPATHY ECONOMICS

The life of a dedicated public figure in the often dismal world of economics.

Veteran journalist and news editor Ullmann draws on 150 interviews with Yellen; her husband, economist and Nobel laureate George Akerlof; their son, economics professor Robert Akerlof; and Yellen’s many friends and colleagues to create an admiring portrait of a woman that he—and many others—compares to Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Born in 1946, Yellen is the daughter of a physician whose caring and generosity made a lasting impact on her. “Thinking about the plight of the unemployed, their pain, their economic insecurity, and how they must feel,” Ullmann writes, “has been part of Yellen’s makeup since her father treated so many down-on-their-luck patients.” As the author demonstrates throughout, empathy informs her thinking about issues such as interest rates, banking regulations, unemployment, inequality, and gender bias. In a field dominated by men, Yellen encountered sexism most overtly in her six years teaching at Harvard. After graduate school at Yale, mentored by the like-minded James Tobin, Yellen found Harvard cold and hostile. She left happily in 1977 for a position as staff economist in the international division of the Federal Reserve. After marrying Akerlof the following year, the couple taught at the London School of Economics and then at Berkeley. Yellen was praised for being a clear, accessible professor, and her 23-year career in academia ended when President Bill Clinton appointed her to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve in 1994 and as Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors in 1997. Although bristling at the “old boys’ environment” of the Clinton White House, Yellen stood out as earnest, dedicated, unassuming, honest, and frank. All of these qualities served her when she succeeded Ben Bernanke as Federal Reserve Chair and, most lately, as the first female secretary of the treasury. Ullmann explains clearly the economic crises, decisions, and controversies that have marked Yellen’s storied career.

A warmly sympathetic, authoritative biography of a true public servant.