Janet L. Yellen, the Fed’s vice chairwoman, is one of three female friends, all former or current professors at the University of California, Berkeley, who have broken into the male-dominated business of advising presidents on economic policy. Her career has been intertwined with those of Christina D. Romer, who led Mr. Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers at the beginning of his first term, and Laura D’Andrea Tyson, who held the same job under President Clinton and later served as the director of the White House economic policy committee. But no woman has climbed to the very top of the hierarchy to serve as Fed chairwoman or Treasury secretary.
Ms. Yellen’s chief rival for Mr. Bernanke’s job, Lawrence H. Summers, is a member of a close-knit group of men, protégés of the former Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin, who have dominated economic policy-making in both the Clinton and the Obama administrations. Those men, including the former Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and Gene B. Sperling, the president’s chief economic policy adviser, are said to be quietly pressing Mr. Obama to nominate Mr. Summers.
The choice of a Fed chair is perhaps the single most important economic policy decision that Mr. Obama will make in his second term. Mr. Bernanke’s successor must lead the Fed’s fractious policy-making committee in deciding how much longer and how much harder it should push to stimulate growth and seek to drive down the unemployment rate.
Ms. Yellen’s selection would be a vote for continuity: she is an architect of the Fed’s stimulus campaign and shares with Mr. Bernanke a low-key, collaborative style. Mr. Summers, by contrast, has said that he doubts the effectiveness of some of the Fed’s efforts, and his self-assured leadership style has more in common with past chairmen like Alan Greenspan and Paul A. Volcker.
But the choice also is roiling Washington because it is reviving longstanding and sensitive questions about the insularity of the Obama White House and the dearth of women in its top economic policy positions. Even as three different women have served as secretary of state under various presidents and growing numbers have taken other high-ranking government jobs, there has been little diversity among Mr. Obama’s top economic advisers.
“Are we moving forward? It’s hard to see it,” said Ms. Romer, herself a late addition to Mr. Obama’s original economic team, chosen partly because the president wanted a woman.
She said she viewed the choice of the next leader of the Fed as a test of the administration’s commitment to inclusiveness. “Within the administration there have been many successful women,” she said. “There are lots of areas where women are front and center, where women are succeeding and doing very well. Economic policy is one where they’re not.”
Supporters of Mr. Summers dismiss the idea that gender is a factor in the decision. They say that they simply regard him as the best person for the job. They point to the fact that he has served in both of the other top economic policy positions — as Treasury secretary in the Clinton administration and as chief economic policy adviser to Mr. Obama — which makes him a known quantity who has demonstrated an ability to respond effectively to financial crises.
Ms. Yellen was widely seen as the front-runner to succeed Mr. Bernanke, but that appears to have reflected an absence of information about the views of Mr. Obama and his closest advisers. As word circulated in recent days that the president was seriously considering Mr. Summers, Ms. Yellen’s supporters have rushed forward to bolster her candidacy.
“It would be great to have a woman, the first woman chairman of the Fed, no question about it,” Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the House minority leader, told Bloomberg Television on Thursday. “She’s extremely talented. It’s not just that she’s a woman.”
Ms. Pelosi said that she also thought Mr. Summers was a qualified candidate.
On Thursday, Senate Democrats were rallying support for Ms. Yellen, with about a third of the 54 members of the caucus signing a letter backing her candidacy.
Jackie Calmes and Jeremy W. Peters contributed reporting.
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/26/business/in-tug-of-war-over-new-fed-leader-some-gender-undertones.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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