Janet Yellen joins Equitable Growth Steering Committee
Washington, D.C. — The Washington Center for Equitable Growth announced today that former Federal Reserve chair and Council of Economic Advisers chair Janet L. Yellen has joined the organization’s Steering Committee.
Yellen, a professor emeritus at the University of California at Berkeley, served a four-year term as chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System that ended in February 2018, and she chaired the White House Council of Economic Advisers from 1997 to 1999. She has also served as vice chair and as a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
The Washington Center for Equitable Growth is a non-profit research and grantmaking organization dedicated to advancing evidence-backed ideas and policies that promote strong, stable, and broad-based economic growth. Equitable Growth works to build a bridge between academics and policymakers to ensure that research on equitable growth and inequality is relevant, accessible, and informative to the policymaking process. Its Steering Committee, which comprises leading economists and senior policymakers, provides guidance and approves overall direction for the organization.
“There are few economists with the depth of academic and policymaking experience that Janet Yellen possesses,” said Heather Boushey, Equitable Growth’s executive director and chief economist. “She has worked tirelessly, in her research and in her high government positions, to promote strong economic growth that benefits workers and to ensure that the American Dream is within reach for all.
“Moreover, Dr. Yellen personifies a critical element of the Equitable Growth mission. In her career, she has herself been a bridge between the academic research that is so critical to understanding inequality and economic growth and the world of policymaking, where she has sought to address these critical issues. We are fortunate to have the benefit of her guidance.”
Yellen is the Eugene E. and Catherine M. Trefethen Professor Emerita of Business Administration at the University of California at Berkeley and has been a faculty member there since 1980. Currently, she is a Distinguished Fellow in Residence at The Brookings Institution’s Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and has served as president of the Western Economic Association, vice president of the American Economic Association, and a fellow of the Yale Corporation.
“Equitable Growth is supporting critical research on the channels through which inequality affects economic growth and elevating evidence-based ideas to policymakers,” Yellen said. “How we achieve growth that benefits all is the fundamental economic question of the 21st century, and I’m excited to have the opportunity to help guide the organization that is driving that conversation in Washington and nationally.”