Bernanke Seeking Animal Spirits Channels Yellen Spouse Akerlof

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke can review John Maynard Keynes on reviving “animal spirits” after an economic slump. Or he can read the more contemporary work of Janet Yellen’s husband.

George Akerlof, a Nobel Prize-winning economist and spouse of the Fed vice chairman, co-wrote with Yale University’s Robert Shiller a 2009 book titled “Animal Spirits,” a phrase borrowed from Keynes’s 1936 work. They argued that confidence and human behavior play an under-appreciated role in driving the U.S. economy and global capital markets.