Eugene E. and Catherine M. Trefethen Professor Emeritus of Business Administration
Economic Analysis & Policy
About
Janet L. Yellen is the Eugene E. and Catherine M. Trefethen Professor Emeritus of Business Administration at the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley. On January 26, 2021, Yellen was sworn in as the 78th Secretary of the Treasury of the United States (opens in a new tab). Yellen served as Chair of the Federal Reserve from 2014 to 2018, Vice Chair from 2010 to 2014, and Chair of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers from 1997 to 1999. 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. Read More
An economist by training, Yellen joined the Berkeley Haas faculty in 1980. For the next 26 years, she taught thousands of MBA and undergraduate students in macroeconomics, economics, and trade. Her academic research (opens in a new tab) focuses on unemployment and labor markets, monetary and fiscal policies, and international trade. Beloved by her students, she earned the school’s highest teaching honor, the Earl F. Cheit Award for Excellence in Teaching, in 1985 and 1988.
Read Yellen’s full profile on the U.S. Treasury website (opens in a new tab).
Expertise and Research Interests
- Unemployment and labor markets
- Monetary and fiscal policies
- International trade and investment policy
- The Fabulous Decade: Macroeconomic Lessons from the 1990s, with Alan Binder. New York: The Century Foundation Press, 2001.
- “Trends in Income Inequality and Policy Responses.” Looking Ahead (October 1997).
- “The Inequality Paradox: Growth of Income Disparity.” National Policy Association (1998).
- “The Continuing Importance of Trade Liberalization.” Business Economics (1998).
- “Monetary Policy: Goals and Strategy.” Business Economics (July 1996).
- “An Analysis of Out-of-Wedlock Childbearing in the United States,” with George Akerlof and Michael Katz. Journal of Economics (May 1996).
- “East Germany In From the Cold: The Economic Aftermath of Currency Union,” with George Akerlof, Andrew Rose, and Helga Hessenius. Brookings Papers on Economic Activity 1991:1.
- “How Large Are the Losses from Rule of Thumb Behavior in Models of the Business Cycle?” with George Akerlof, in Money, Macroeconomics and Economic Policy: Essays in Honor of James Tobin, edited by Willima Brainard, William Nordhaus, and Harold Watts, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1991.
At Haas since 1980
2021 – present, Secretary of the Treasury, U.S. Department of the Treasury
2018 – 2020, Distinguished Fellow in Residence – Economic Studies, The Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy, Brookings Institution
2014 – 2018, Chair, Federal Reserve Board of Governors
2010 – 2014, Vice Chair, Federal Reserve Board of Governors
2004 – 2010, President and CEO, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
2006 – present, Eugene E. and Catherine M. Trefethen Professor Emeritus of Business Administration
1999 – 2006, Eugene E. and Catherine M. Trefethen Professor of Business Administration and Professor of Economics
1985 – 2006, Professor, Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley
1997 – 1999, Chair, President’s Council of Economic Advisors
1994 – 1997, Member, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
1982 – 1985, Associate Professor, Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley
1980 – 1982, Assistant Professor, Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley
1978 – 1980, Lecturer, London School of Economics and Political Science
1977 – 1978, Economist, Division of International Finance, Trade and Financial Studies Section, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
1971 – 1976, Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, Harvard University
1974, Research Fellow, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
- Vice President, Western Economics Association
- Fellow, Yale Corporation
- Member, National Academy of Sciences Panel on Ensuring the Best Presidential Science and Technology Appointments
- Research Associate, National Bureau of Economic Research
- Advisory Board, Center for International Political Economy
- Advisory Board, Brookings Panel on Economic Activity
- Chair: Economic Policy Committee of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
- President’s Interagency Committee on Women’s Business Enterprise
- Member and adviser: Brookings Panel on Economic Activity (senior advisor); Advisor Panel in Economics, National Science Foundation
- Advisor: Congressional Budget Office
- Research fellow: Yale University, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Distinguished Fellow, American Economic Association
- Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2001
- Fellow, Yale Corporation, 2000
- Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters Degree, Bard College, May 2000
- Honorary Doctor of Laws Degree, Brown University, 1998
- Maria and Sidney Rolfe Award for National Economic Service, Women’s Economic Roundtable, 1997
- Wilbur Lucius Cross Medal, Yale University, 1997
- Honorary Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, 1967
- Guggenheim Fellow, 1986-1987
- Earl F. Cheit Award for Excellence in Teaching (Evening MBA Program), 1988
- Earl F. Cheit Award for Excellence in Teaching (MBA Program), 1985
Facts and Figures about Janet Yellen