Yellen or Summers: Who'd Be Better at Running the Fed?
Would Fed Vice Chairman Janet Yellen or former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers do a better job at the central bank?
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The race to be the next chairman of the Federal Reserve hasn't officially begun, but that needn't stop us from comparing runners' strengths. Fed Vice Chairman Janet Yellen and former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers are serious prospects. Who'd be better?
Ideologially, there isn't much in it. Loosely speaking, both are members of the New Keynesian school of thought, which takes a pretty orthodox free-market view and adds "stickiness" to prices to explain recessions. In terms of academic eminence, Summers has the edge: Yellen is an academic star, but Summers is a superstar.