FT年度女性評選獎項之二 耶倫
The rise of some careers – those of Lawrence Summers and Barack Obama, for example – is meteoric. They speed, seemingly unhindered by any obstacle, towards the positions of highest power.
有一種人在事業上可謂平步青雲，例如勞倫斯•薩默斯(Lawrence Summers)和巴拉克•奧巴馬(Barack Obama)：他們似乎沒有遇到任何阻礙，就迅速坐上了最高權力的寶座。Janet Yellen belongs in a different category. Her rise was slow but implacable, and this year, at the age of 67, she overcame the president’s preference for his former adviser Summers to win the most powerful economic job of all: chair of the US Federal Reserve.
但珍妮特•耶倫(Janet Yellen)屬於另一種人。她的事業上升速度緩慢，但勢不可擋。今年，67歲的她力克奧巴馬總統對前經濟顧問薩默斯的偏愛，贏得了代表經濟領域權力巔峯的職位：美聯儲(Fed)主席。Accepting the nomination from Obama with the broadest of smiles, in her Brooklyn accent, the first woman to hold the post showed the determination to tackle high unemployment that has been her calling card as Fed vice-chair.
在接受奧巴馬總統提名時，笑容舒展的耶倫操持着她的布魯克林口音，表達了自己解決失業率高居不下問題的決心——這是她擔任美聯儲副主席期間廣爲人知的一張名片。耶倫是美聯儲的首位女性掌門人。
“While we have made progress, we have further to go,” she said. “Too many Americans still can’t find a job and worry about how they will pay their bills and provide for their families.”
“儘管我們取得了一些進展，但前面還有一段路要走。”她說，“還有太多的美國人仍沒有找到工作，仍愁着如何才能付掉各種賬單、才能供養家庭。”Yellen grew up in a working-class area of New York but her family was well-provided for: her father was a doctor who worked from the ground floor of their terraced house. Academically, she excelled. It was traditional for the editor of the school newspaper to interview the student graduating top of the year so Yellen ended up interviewing herself.
耶倫在紐約一個工薪階層社區長大，但她的家庭條件不錯：她父親是醫生，工作地點就設在他們家所住的排屋一樓。耶倫學業出衆。她是校報的主編，按照校報的傳統，主編要採訪當年畢業生中的第一名，結果耶倫自己採訪了自己。She went to Brown University and then on to Yale for a doctorate. Her professor was James Tobin, the future Nobel laureate who refined Keynesian economics in the 1950s and 1960s but was also intensely interested in the real world of policy. “He encouraged his students to do work that was about something,” Yellen said of Tobin after he died. “Work that would not only meet a high intellectual standard but would improve the wellbeing of mankind.”
她先是就讀於布朗大學(Brown University)，後來又赴耶魯(Yale)攻讀博士學位，師從後獲得諾貝爾經濟學獎的詹姆斯•託賓(James Tobin)。託賓於上世紀五六十年代改良了凱恩斯的經濟學理論，同時也極爲關注現實世界的政策。“他鼓勵自己的學生做點實事，”耶倫在託賓去世後說，“這些事不僅要在學術上達到高標準，而且要有助於增進人類的福祉。”Her first tour at the Fed, working as an economist, came in 1977 where she also met her husband-to-be, George Akerlof, in the central bank’s cafeteria. “We liked each other immediately and decided to get married,” wrote Akerlof after he won the 2001 Nobel Prize in economics. “Not only did our personalities mesh perfectly but we have also always been in all but perfect agreement about macroeconomics.”
耶倫第一次加入美聯儲是在1977年，擔任經濟學家。也是在美聯儲的咖啡廳裏，她遇到了未來的丈夫喬治•阿克洛夫(George Akerlof)。“我們一見鍾情，然後決定結婚，”阿克洛夫在獲得2001年諾貝爾經濟學獎後寫道，“我們不僅性格非常契合，而且在宏觀經濟學上也一直能達成幾乎完美的共識。”A successful, but not stellar, career in academia followed at the University of California, Berkeley. The couple collaborated on research and Yellen was a popular teacher at the university’s Haas School of Business.
這對夫婦隨後在加州大學伯克利分校(University of California, Berkeley)開始了一段成功的執教生涯，但彼時他們的成就還不太耀眼。耶倫與丈夫在研究上相互協助，而她也是該校哈斯商學院(Haas School of Business)頗具人氣的教師。Her destiny seemed to be that of any other university professor. But Yellen’s qualities – her interest in policy, the meticulous way she prepared and thought about problems and her social skills – had been noted by colleagues, some of whom were close to, or part of, the Clinton administration.
那時，等待耶倫的命運看上去與其他大學教授沒什麼兩樣。但在那時，她的才幹——對政策的興趣、預備和思考問題時的一絲不苟、以及社交能力——已經引起了一些同事的注意。他們中的一些人跟克林頓政府關係密切、或就在克林頓政府內任職。In 1994, aged 48, Yellen became a Fed governor and over the next 20 years there followed a succession of policy jobs: chairman of President Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers, president of the San Francisco Fed and, finally, vice-chair of the Fed itself.
1994年，當時48歲的耶倫成爲美國聯邦儲備委員會委員。在接下來的20年裏，她又相繼擔任了若干與政策相關的職務，包括克林頓總統時期的白宮經濟顧問委員會(Council of Economic Advisers)主席，舊金山聯邦儲備銀行(San Francisco Fed)行長，以及美聯儲副主席。Her ascent has not been entirely smooth. The period in the White House was difficult, say colleagues from that time, as she ran up against political operators. But that experience also taught her steeliness. Good luck to any official who “forgot” to invite her to an important meeting.
耶倫的升遷之路並非一帆風順。據她過去在白宮的同事講，耶倫那時的日子並不好過，她經常在操縱政治的人那裏碰釘子。但那段經歷也讓她煉成了鋼鐵般的意志。那些曾“忘記”邀請她參加某個重要會議的官員，祝你們好運。Yellen’s arrival will improve the Obama administration’s dismal record of appointing women to top economic jobs. She will join Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund, at the helm of the global economy. The two are friends and can be spotted sitting next to each other at events such as the annual Kansas City Fed conference.
耶倫出任美聯儲主席，將改善奧巴馬政府在任命女性擔任經濟領域重要職務方面的糟糕記錄。她將跟隨國際貨幣基金組織(IMF)主席克里斯蒂娜•拉加德(Christine Lagarde)的腳步，加入世界經濟掌舵者的行列。她們倆是朋友，在堪薩斯城聯邦儲備銀行的年度會議等活動中，可以看到兩人坐在一起。“I’m overjoyed,” said Lagarde, when asked about the selection of Yellen. The new Fed chair, she added, is “as good as you can get”.
當被問及對耶倫被選中的感想時，拉加德說：“我非常高興。”她補充道，這位新任美聯儲主席是“現有的最佳人選”。
