Yellen Quotes & Sayings

One common way of judging whether housing's price is in line with its fundamental value is to consider the ratio of housing prices to rents. This is analogous to the ratio of prices to dividends for stocks. — Janet Yellen

The bottom line for housing is that the concerns we used to hear about the possibility of a devastating collapse - one that might be big enough to cause a recession in the U.S. economy - while not fully allayed have diminished. Moreover, while the future for housing activity remains uncertain, I think there is a reasonable chance that housing is in the process of stabilizing, which would mean that it would put a considerably smaller drag on the economy going forward. — Janet Yellen

It slightly worries me that when people find a problem, they rush to judgment of what to do. — Janet Yellen

In 1977, when I started my first job at the Federal Reserve Board as a staff economist in the Division of International Finance, it was an article of faith in central banking that secrecy about monetary policy decisions was the best policy: Central banks, as a rule, did not discuss these decisions, let alone their future policy intentions. — Janet Yellen

Transparency concerning the Federal Reserve's conduct of monetary policy is desirable because better public understanding enhances the effectiveness of policy. More important, however, is that transparent communications reflect the Federal Reserve's commitment to accountability within our democratic system of government. — Janet Yellen

By some estimates, income and wealth inequality are near their highest levels in the past hundred years, much higher than the average during that time span and probably higher than for much of American history before then. — Janet Yellen

The past few decades of widening inequality can be summed up as significant income and wealth gains for those at the very top and stagnant living standards for the majority — Janet Yellen

We need to increase the transparency of shadow banking markets so that authorities can monitor for signs of excessive leverage and unstable maturity transformation outside regulated banks. — Janet Yellen

Are deviations from full employment a social problem? Obviously. — Janet Yellen

Listening to others, especially those with whom we disagree, tests our own ideas and beliefs. It forces us to recognize, with humility, that we don't have a monopoly on the truth. — Janet Yellen

Food and energy account for a significant portion of household budgets, so the Federal Reserve's inflation objective is defined in terms of the overall change in consumer prices. — Janet Yellen

People stop buying things, and that is how you turn a slowdown into a recession. — Janet Yellen

The trust institutions have in the marketplace, the confidence customers and suppliers and workers and employees have, are very important to a business's effectiveness. — Janet Yellen

In the five years since the end of the Great Recession, the economy has made considerable progress in recovering from the largest and most sustained loss of employment in the United States since the Great Depression. — Janet Yellen

[A] major source of wealth for many families is financial assets, including stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and private pensions ... the wealthiest 5 percent of households held nearly two-thirds of all such assets in 2013 — Janet Yellen

If it were possible to take interest rates into negative territory I would be voting for that. — Janet Yellen

The lower half of households by wealth held just 3% of wealth in 1989 and only 1% in 2013. — Janet Yellen

In the long run, outsourcing is another form of trade that benefits the U.S. economy by giving us cheaper ways to do things. — Janet Yellen

I'm just opposed to a pure inflation-only mandate in which the only thing a central bank cares about is inflation and not employment. — Janet Yellen

I think it is appropriate to ask whether this trend is compatible with values rooted in our nation's history, among them the high value Americans have traditionally placed on equality of opportunity. — Janet Yellen

Productivity growth, however it occurs, has a disruptive side to it. In the short term, most things that contribute to productivity growth are very painful. — Janet Yellen

Yellen's comments suggest, and I agree, that we are in an asset bubble. — Carl Icahn

My bottom line is that monetary policy should react to rising prices for houses or other assets only insofar as they affect the central bank's goal variables - output, employment, and inflation. — Janet Yellen

Stores don't order merchandise unless they think they can sell it right away. Manufacturers and builders don't produce unless they have buyers lined up. My business contacts describe this as a paradigm shift and they believe it's permanent. — Janet Yellen

For my own part, I did not see and did not appreciate what the risks were with securitization, the credit ratings agencies, the shadow banking system, the S.I.V.'s - I didn't see any of that coming until it happened. — Janet Yellen

The principle that a central bank, charged with controlling inflation, should be independent from the government is unassailable. It may also be true that it's easier for the central bank to guard its independence from political pressure when it mainly holds government securities. — Janet Yellen

At the federal level, the fiscal stimulus of 2008 and 2009 supported economic output, but the effects of that stimulus faded; by 2011, federal fiscal policy actions became a drag on output growth when the recovery was still weak. — Janet Yellen

Janet Yellen at the FED is equivalent to having a biology schoolteacher who has never seen blood perform brain surgery. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

After adjusting for inflation, the average income of the top 5% of households grew by 38% from 1989 to 2013. ...By comparison, the average real income of the other 95% of households grew less than 10%. — Janet Yellen

Firms don't just try to pay as little as possible to get the needed bodies on board; when there is unemployment, they ask themselves how wage cuts would affect the behavior of the employees. Would they quit or feel dissatisfied and work less hard on the firm's behalf if they feel that wage policies are unfair? — Janet Yellen

A clear lesson of history is that a 'sine qua non' for sustained economic recovery following a financial crisis is a thoroughgoing repair of the financial system. — Janet Yellen

Long-term unemployment can make any worker progressively less employable, even after the economy strengthens. — Janet Yellen

A crucial responsibility of any central bank is to control inflation, the average rate of increase in the prices of a broad group of goods and services. — Janet Yellen

We do not interpret bitcoin's popularity as having a relationship with the public's view of the Federal Reserve's conduct of monetary policy — Janet Yellen

Uncertainty about sales impedes business planning and could harm capital formation just as much as uncertainty about inflation can create uncertainty about relative prices and harm business planning. — Janet Yellen

Individuals out of work for an extended period can become less employable as they lose the specific skills acquired in their previous jobs and also lose the habits needed to hold down any job. — Janet Yellen

Models used to describe and predict inflation commonly distinguish between changes in food and energy prices - which enter into total inflation - and movements in the prices of other goods and services - that is, core inflation. — Janet Yellen

Errors of human judgment can infect even the smartest people, thanks to overconfidence, lack of attention to details, and excessive trust in the judgments of others, stemming from a failure to understand that others are not making independent judgments, but are themselves following still others - the blind leading the blind. - ROBERT J. SHILLER, PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS, YALE UNIVERSITY — Pamela Yellen

Nationally, the share of mortgages that are underwater fell by about one-half between 2011 and 2014. — Janet Yellen

While admirers of capitalism, we also to a certain extent believe it has limitations that require government intervention in markets to make them work. — Janet Yellen

In government institutions and in teaching, you need to inspire confidence. To achieve credibility, you have to very clearly explain what you are doing and why. The same principles apply to businesses. — Janet Yellen

When you're unemployed for six months or a year, it is hard to qualify for a lease, so even the option of relocating to find a job is often off the table. — Janet Yellen

The Federal Reserve's objectives of maximum employment and price stability do not, by themselves, ensure a strong pace of economic growth or an improvement in living standards. The most important factor determining living standards is productivity growth, defined as increases in how much can be produced in an hour of work. — Janet Yellen

Happy days are here again,
The skies above are clear again:
Let us sing a song of cheer again,
Happy days are here again! — Jack Yellen

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) is committed to policies that promote maximum employment and price stability, consistent with our mandate from Congress. — Janet Yellen

Business students are very oriented to playing a role in the real world and accomplishing something, not training themselves to be scholars and contribute to the literature. Teaching in that kind of environment has focused me much more on the real world, how pieces of the theory I know can be applied to real-world situations. — Janet Yellen

Productivity depends on many factors, including our workforce's knowledge and skills and the quantity and quality of the capital, technology, and infrastructure that they have to work with. — Janet Yellen

I am anxious to fix welfare. There has to be more training and child care. — Janet Yellen

Inequality has risen to the point that it seems to me worthwhile for the U.S. to seriously consider taking the risk of making our economy more rewarding for more of the people. — Janet Yellen

Will capitalist economies operate at full employment in the absence of routine intervention? Certainly not. Do policy makers have the knowledge and ability to improve macroeconomic outcomes rather than make matters worse? Yes. — Janet Yellen

I would be strongly committed to working with the FOMC to continue promoting a robust economic recovery ... I consider it imperative that we do what we can to promote a very strong recovery. — Janet Yellen

To me, a wise and humane policy is occasionally to let inflation rise even when inflation is running above target. — Janet Yellen

The Federal Reserve ranks among the most transparent central banks. We publish a summary of our balance sheet every week. Our financial statements are audited annually by an outside auditor and made public. Every security we hold is listed on the website of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. — Janet Yellen

Although most Americans apparently loathe inflation, Yale economists have argued that a little inflation may be necessary to grease the wheels of the labor market and enable efficiency-enhancing changes in relative pay to occur without requiring nominal wage cuts by workers. — Janet Yellen

Strapped by tight credit and plummeting sales, businesses have overhauled the way they manage supply chains, inventory, production practices and staffing. — Janet Yellen

Labor force participation peaked in early 2000, so its decline began well before the Great Recession. A portion of that decline clearly relates to the aging of the baby boom generation. But the pace of decline accelerated with the recession. — Janet Yellen

Prospects for growth in the year ahead are solid at the national level, and of course, this can only be good news for the Bay Area and California as well. The U. S. economy has shown remarkable resilience in the face of some severe shocks - in particular, the surge in energy prices that began a couple of years ago and the devastation wrought by the twin hurricanes last summer. — Janet Yellen

The distribution of wealth is even more unequal than that of income ... The wealthiest 5% of American households held 54% of all wealth reported in the 1989 survey. Their share rose to 61% in 2010 and reached 63% in 2013. By contrast, the rest of those in the top half of the wealth distribution -families that in 2013 had a net worth between $81,000 and $1.9 million -held 43% of wealth in 1989 and only 36% in 2013. — Janet Yellen