Janet Yellen, Yay!

Unlike Ben Bernanke, Yellen was never one of my teachers, but she seems to share some of the qualities I admire in Bernanke: namely, she is a very smart economist who cares about how the world actually works. I have read and admire her papers on efficiency wages, out-of-wedlock childbearing, and the implications of quasi-rational behavior. Whether she shares Bernanke's political savvy and nerves of steel in the face of chaos is unknowable. One hopes she is never put to the test on that. Once a century is enough.