In January of this year, the annual conference of the American Economics Association (AEA) was held in Atlanta, and I had the privilege of attending. In a widely publicized session, the three most recent chairs of the Federal Reserve — Jerome Powell (current chair), Janet Yellen, and Ben Bernanke — participated in a panel discussion of top economic issues.
I attended the session, in part to hear the perspectives of our nation’s top economists, but mostly just to be in a room with one of my professional heroes, Dr. Yellen. When she walked into the room, I went whole fangirl, taking selfies with the stage in the background, texting all my friends, and grinning ear to ear. I was just as giddy to see Janet Yellen in January as I was to see Elton John last week.
Dr. Yellen rose to celebrity status as chair of the Federal Reserve Board from 2014 to 2017, through some of the most critical years of our recovery after emerging from the Great Recession. Prior to her appointment as Fed Chair, she served as faculty at Harvard, the London School of Economics and Political Science, and at UC Berkeley. She served several years on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, chaired President Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisors and served as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
These are all accomplishments worthy of great respect. But, what makes her a celebrity and my hero is that she earned her place at the top of a field not historically welcoming to women. This is also why I have chosen to focus on her here during Women’s History Month.
Dr. Yellen graduated from Brown University with a B.A. in economics in 1967 and received her Ph.D. in economics from Yale in 1971. An American Economics Association report published in 1973 surveyed 397 colleges and universities in the U.S. and found that in 1972, only 12 percent of all Economics Ph.D. students were women; 6 percent of all college Economics lecturers, instructors, or professors were women; and only 3 percent of full professors in economics were women.
An update of the same report showed that in 2017, 32.9 percent of Economics PhDs awarded were to women, 20.1 percent of tenure-track professors in economics were women, and 13.9 percent of full professors in Economics are women.
Things have gotten better for women in economics, but the numbers indicate there is still work to be done.
And, this is where our hero swoops in again!
During that panel session in Atlanta, all three of the panelists agreed that when we are not intentional about including women and minorities, “We’re losing a major source of talent and insight” (Bernanke). Ben Bernanke is the current president of the AEA, and Janet Yellen will be the next president. Bernanke and Yellen agreed that recruiting more women to the field and improving the professional environment for women “should be the highest priority for us.”
I can think of no one better than Dr. Yellen to lead this effort, and I look forward to being in a room with her again for an update — and maybe also an autograph.
Dr. Melissa Trussell is a professor in the School of Business and Public Management at College of Coastal Georgia who works with the college’s Reg Murphy Center for Economic and Policy Studies. Contact her at mtrussell@ccga.edu.
Reg Murphy Center