Janet Yellen, Pioneer and Policymaker Available to Purchase

Two profiles of Janet Yellen that appeared in 2022 provide interesting and highly readable accounts of her life and accomplishments. Jon Hilsenrath's Yellen: The Trailblazing Economist Who Navigated an Era of Upheaval (HarperCollins, 2022) and Owen Ullmann's Empathy Economics: Janet Yellen's Remarkable Rise to Power and Her Drive to Spread Prosperity to All (PublicAffairs, 2022) end early in Yellen's appointment as Biden's Treasury secretary and so leave us in mid-history as it were, wanting to know the end of the story. That is what happens in biographies of living subjects, particularly when they are still in high-profile positions. That Hilsenrath and Ullmann wanted to profile Yellen should be no surprise: she is the first woman to serve as either Federal Reserve chair or secretary of the Treasury, the most senior woman economic policymaker in US history, a role model and breaker of glass ceilings.¹ They view Yellen as the...