Janet Yellen, vice chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve and a professor emerita at UC Berkeley, is one of two individuals currently being considered by President Barack Obama to replace Ben Bernanke as chair of the Federal Reserve.

Yellen is a professor emerita of economics at Haas School of Business, and if appointed, she would be both the first female and first UC Berkeley professor to serve as chair of the Fed.

Larry Summers, who was previously U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, director of the National Economic Council and president of Harvard University, is also being considered. Obama is expected to select either Yellen or Summers for the position at the end of August.

Yellen received her doctorate in economics from Yale University in 1971 and began her career at UC Berkeley in 1980 as a macroeconomics professor at the Haas school. In 1985 and 1988, Yellen received the school’s Earl F. Cheit Award for Excellence in Teaching.

“Janet was always a phenomenal teacher — partly because she worked very, very hard at it,” said David Levine, an economics professor at the business school, whom Yellen mentored. “She thought about literally every word she would say. As she has moved up in government, this level of thoughtfulness and reflection has always been increasingly important — and as a high official of the Federal Reserve system, where literally, the placement of a comma can move the markets.”

Yellen’s experience working at the Fed includes serving as a member of its board of governors and as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. She was also chair of Bill Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers.

While Yellen and Summers rival each other in academic and government experience, their economic values are on opposite ends of the ideological spectrum.

Yellen advocates economic regulation, supports the usage of stimulus plans to boost the economy and is expected to continue Bernanke’s policies if appointed. Summers supports policies of economic deregulation, but following the economic crisis of 2008, he has openly stated that he wants more regulation of Wall Street transactions.

Although Henry Brady, dean of the Goldman School of Public Policy, acknowledges that Yellen and Summers have “tremendous ideological differences,” he said they would both know how to handle the responsibilities of the Fed, like knowing when to ease up on monetary expansion.

Campus economics professor Brad DeLong, who worked with Summers as deputy assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of the Treasury when Summers was treasury secretary, enthusiastically supported Yellen’s appointment but has been vocal about his preference for Summers for the position.

“Larry Summers has an edge as the most creative thinker likely to successfully think outside the box should outside-the-box thinking be called for, and least likely to bind himself to an institutional consensus past its sell-by date,” DeLong wrote in a New York Times article.

Andrew Rose, an economics professor at the Haas school, has known Yellen for 28 years and says that Yellen is very persuasive, easily forms a consensus and is very calm and collected.

“One of the gripes about her is that it isn’t clear how well she will respond to a crisis, but we went through the Loma Prieta earthquake together in Barrows Hall,” Rose said.  “We really both thought that the building was going to collapse, but she stayed quite calm during the earthquake, which is a pretty impressive thing.”

Brady also believes that if Yellen is appointed to the chair position, her well-developed inner circle will allow her to transition smoothly into the position.

Contact Sophie Mattson at smattson@dailycal.org.

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Alex Mousouris/Staff

After laughing and chatting in close-knit circles, it’s finally time for a group of Nigerian state legislators in the living room of UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy to hear the day’s lecture — a lecture that aims to bring them one step closer to implementing better public policies in their state.

The group of 40 legislators from the Delta State House of Assembly in Nigeria arrived in Berkeley on July 29 to take part in a newly designed two-week executive leadership program focusing on governance and policy development in areas such as housing, higher education and sustainable energy. They will be returning for the next two summers to participate in additional two-week training programs.

The Honorable Victor Ochei, speaker of Nigeria’s Delta State Legislature, said that when the House Assembly was originally looking at educational programs abroad, they were choosing between various prestigious schools, including UC Berkeley.

“We thought Harvard was the best, actually, but Goldman was the top-rated school,” Ochei said. “Here in Berkeley, it’s different because the style is more open and more practical. For every time there’s a lecture, there is a field trip. ”

Staff members at the Goldman school said they view the program as an exciting opportunity not only to teach theoretical public policy frameworks but also to see how those theories are put into practice by active world leaders. The school also partners with the Jiangsu province in China, Kochi University of Technology in Japan and the Civil Service Bureau of the Hong Kong special administrative region to create similar programs.

“We want to implement international policy and understand how other countries are thinking in order to be able to work with them,” said Sudha Shetty, assistant dean for global alliances at the school.

Different issues are addressed each day during the two-week program, providing a comprehensive education in each area of public policy the leaders wish to reform.

Wednesday’s itinerary included a discussion with Henry Brady, dean of the public policy school, concerning the dynamics of higher education and what it does for society. The discussion was followed by a group field trip to Sacramento to see California legislators in action.

On another day, legislators worked on developing innovative ways to engage Nigerian youth in issues like job access and education, which, according to the Honorable Barr Princess Pat Ajudua, has posed a significant challenge.

“The youth are restless — restless from unemployment and lack of education,” Ajudua said. “When youth get out of school and find themselves without a job, they turn to all kinds of criminal things to get money to leave their parents and get married and lead a good life.”

Because of the program, Ajudua believes that the Assembly has already learned strategies to confront the issue, such as instating more facilities provided for youth to go to school, financial grounds for students to get an education they otherwise could not afford and initiating new training programs for teachers.

Despite the seriousness of the political problems the program aimed to tackle, the atmosphere in the lecture hall was both academically rigorous and social. Assembly members shared many laughs and side conversations between PowerPoint slides on global governance.

“So far, the program’s been fantastic,” Ochei said.

Contact Andrew Dickey and Nico Correia at newsdesk@dailycal.org.

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Levy Yun/File

For those of you who are midterm-submerged, cheeks-still-bulging-from-Taco-Tuesday fare, the Clog has come to fill your political fix. To help you make those A+ contributions to your discussion (or impress that attractive poli sci GSI), we’ve compiled a list of the most important takeaways from the Federal Budget panel Wednesday afternoon, or what the Clog refers to as “the budget burster brawl at Berkeley’s Wurster Hall.”

1. All-Star Team. The speakers were Henry Brady (dean of the Goldman School of Public Policy), Lanhee Chen (policy director of the Romney 2012 campaign) and our larger-than-life professor Robert Reich (former secretary of labor).

2. History lesson. Brady gave us a surprisingly in-depth look at the last 250 years of American history … in his five-minute intro. We’re pretty sure that’s a world record.

3. A Cardinal in the Bear’s Den. Chen started his speech with “I come here with trepidation that there are two strikes against me. First, I am a conservative Republican. Second, I teach at Stanford.” Apparently this was a pretty formal event, since the audience was lacking in the “hissing” and “booing” department.  We’re sure the Bears were saving up for that night’s basketball game.

4. Sequester Semester.  “I don’t think the sequester is such a bad thing,” insisted Chen, adding that, “The magnitude of the cuts finally means we have a mechanism to reduce spending.” Both Brady and Reich fired back. Brady argued that further cuts would weaken Cal’s research program and its financial aid commitments. Looking nationally, Reich warned that the “sequester is very dangerous — half of it cuts nondiscretionary, nonmilitary spending. These will hurt those that are most vulnerable in society.”

5.  Flip-flop. The main event was to discuss the impacts of the sequester and the national debt. But the talk quickly devolved into a clash over the future of health care costs. And then stayed that way for the hour.

6. Reich came, he saw, he conquered. As the battle over health care policy began, Chen insisted that the best way to reduce health care costs was to further commercialize it with “a greater consumer dynamic and transparency over quality.” But Reich countered with the idea that greater “consumer choice only makes a lot of sense on the macro level. But most Americans get their health insurance from their employers and select out of three of four plans.” He stressed that because most people don’t know every possible healthcare package, it actually makes them susceptible.

7. So sick. According to Reich, “We have the only health care system where insurers avoid sick people.” To solve this, he proposed additional state-led accountable care organizations aimed to incentivize outcome-based care (as opposed to fee-for-service), as stipulated by the Affordable Care Act. For Brady, the fact that the rate of increase of health care costs has gone down recently is evidence that the Affordable Care Act was “the most magnificent accomplishment of Obama’s first term.”

8. Forever Young. Buzzing with ideas, Reich added that immigration reform should be closely aligned with entitlement reform. “Every rich nation is facing problems with an aging population. Only young, developing nations have the populations that could offset this.”

9. Compromise, what’s that? After brief discussion on taxation, closing loopholes and Chen noting that Romney’s health care bill “bears similarity” to Obama’s, the panelists were asked about the future. Both Brady and Chen thought that Democrats and Republicans would fail to reach a grand bargain within Obama’s second term. As for Reich? After spending a minute summarizing the Republican platform, he emphasized “by the way, they are wrong!”

10. Reich’s top three things to get out of the event. We spoke to Reich after the event for any final thoughts he had on American politics. He told us, “First, that students have to understand that the biggest (political) challenges are  jobs, wages and income inequality and not the federal deficit. Second, that the long-term solution is not to bring the amount of federal debt down but its ratio of debt to GDP. One way to do this is through economic growth. Third, that certain items such as investments in education, infrastructure, and research and development should be made regardless of budget deficit if social return is greater than cost.”

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The Berkeley Forum/Courtesy

The Berkeley Forum hosted a panel on the federal fiscal crisis Wednesday evening, bringing together prominent speakers from both ends of the political spectrum to discuss pressing political and economic issues facing the nation.

The panel, the first of its kind hosted by the forum, featured former secretary of labor Robert Reich, former policy director of the Romney campaign Lanhee Chen and Dean of the Goldman School of Public Policy Henry Brady.

The panelists agreed that the deficit was a problem but differed on how big of an issue it is and when it should be addressed.

A major point of debate was the federal sequester, which Reich characterized as “very, very dangerous” while Chen played down its effects.

“We finally have a mechanism in place to reduce spending,” Chen said. “It’s hard to cut spending because, let’s face it, everyone likes stuff.”

In one of the more dramatic moments of the evening, Brady turned to Chen and pointedly asked if “Romneycare” was really the same as “Obamacare,” a major criticism Mitt Romney faced during the course of his campaign.

The question received large laughs from the audience, which filled the lecture hall to capacity as nearly 150 students, faculty and community members crowded into the room to watch the debate.

The panel, moderated by Jason Willick, the assistant opinion page editor at The Daily Californian, had lighter moments as well, as the speakers joked about their political differences and agreed that today’s fiscal issues are serious no matter which side of the spectrum one is on.

“The issues that divide us … are hard for most Americans to understand,” Reich said. “One of the things driving animosity is that Americans are working harder but (earning less). Most people are frustrated and angry.”

He noted that wealth inequality has not been this severe since the 1980s, if not the Great Depression.

Fred Wilkinson, a retired physician who lives in Berkeley, said he attended the talk because, as a political junkie, he enjoys the sort of debate the Berkeley Forum provides, especially when it comes to health care.

“I’m frustrated, and I don’t know if there’s a solution,” he said. “I was impressed (with the panel). I thought the questions elicited significant responses (from the speakers).”

UC Berkeley freshman Arturo Gutierrez said he heard about the event on Facebook and, as a political science major, was personally interested in the topics discussed.

“It seemed really interesting that both sides could agree on a lot of the issues,” he said.

Wilkinson echoed these sentiments, saying that he was especially interested in what Chen, a conservative Republican, had to say.

“I thought he melded in very well,” he said. “He didn’t seem as right or as conservative as one might expect.”

In one somewhat surprising moment of accord, Chen agreed with Reich when an audience member asked why a flat tax wouldn’t be a good solution to ongoing fiscal problems. Both said that it was not a prudent solution for the nation. Chen noted that the Romney campaign seriously considered such a proposal but concluded that a flat tax wouldn’t make sense for the nation’s fiscal needs.

“I was appreciative of how moderate and reasonable (Chen) is,” Reich said after the talk, noting that he had never met Chen before.

The Berkeley Forum plans to host similar events later this semester on other topics like gun control, said Pierre Bourbonnais, the president of the forum and a former member of The Daily Cal.

“The idea started my freshman year over a conversation I was having with a friend of mine about free will and determinism,” he said. “The idea was to organize a panel on campus, bringing together a philosopher, neuroscientist, physicist and a psychologist to discuss free will  — basically three or four people from different fields.”

He added that the forum was created in the spirit of the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum at Harvard or the Yale Political Union.

“Many colleges, such as Oxford, Cambridge and Yale, have prominent undergraduate organizations that put on debates and panels with famous and distinguished speakers,” he said. “In the long term, we see ourselves having top experts from academia and journalism as well as leading cultural and political icons.”

Chen said afterward that the appeal of the campus community was a major reason he decided to participate in the panel.

“There’s lots of great thinking (at UC Berkeley) … and to be part of that community was very attractive to me,” he said.

Sara Grossman is a news editor. Contact her at sgrossman@dailycal.org.

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The campus community is mourning the transfer of longtime campus figure Bruce Cain, who took up a new position at Stanford University in June after 23 years with the University of California.

The former executive director of UCDC made his way down the bay to take a new position teaching political science and running the Bill Lane Center for the American West, an interdisciplinary unit that sponsors research and holds conferences on history, culture and policy in western North America.

Cain said he decided to leave campus primarily for new opportunities and resources and not because of an increased salary. He said he will be earning “only slightly more” at Stanford than he did at UC Berkeley. His earnings in 2011 totaled $234,237.66, according to The Sacramento Bee’s database of public employee salaries.

“I felt like I had one more job in me at age 63, and there was nothing more I could do for Cal or UC,” Cain said.
As the executive director of UCDC from 2005 to 2012, Cain led efforts to implement an alternative financial model for UCDC based off student fees rather than state funds. Cain said after the center became more financially stable, he could sense that he would not make a difference for the university anymore.

The interim director of the center is Melanie DuPuis, a professor of sociology at UC Santa Cruz.

“I am really saddened at his leaving — he was an enormous contributor in a variety of ways,” said Henry Brady, dean of the campus’s Goldman School of Public Policy, who has known Cain since the two were graduate students. “He created a model that ensured that UCDC really delivered and didn’t just rely on funds from UCOP. We’re really lucky to have him.”

Cain came to UC Berkeley in 1989 as a professor of political science from the California Institute of Technology. In addition to serving as executive director of UCDC, Cain was director of the Institute of Governmental Studies on campus between 1999 and 2007.

He garnered a number of awards during his time on campus, including the Morris and Edna Zale Award for Outstanding Achievement in Policy Research and Public Service in 2000 and an award from the campus College of Letters and Science for distinguished research mentoring of undergraduates in 2003.

“He cared a lot about scholarship and the UC and cared a lot about undergraduate students,” Brady said. “He’s just one of those people — when he spoke, you’d stop and say, ‘I just gotta listen to this guy.’”

Cain said his favorite memories during his time with the campus “will  always be” of the people he interacted with.
“It’s the colleagues you work with and the students you teach,” Cain said. “Alas, the colleagues age and pass on, but the former students are scattered all over the country, and they keep in touch. Watching how many of them have risen to important positions … has been very gratifying.”

Contact Geena Cova at gcova@dailycal.org.

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What makes the school unique, said Anil Deolalikar, director of the public policy initiative and a professor of economics at UC Riverside, is that there is no center that trains policymakers in issues specific to the area east of Los Angeles.

“We have problems of immigration, population growth, environmental degradation, traffic congestion and suburban growth,” Deolalikar said. “We need good policymakers who do not go into politics out of default but are trained to handle policymaking with trained analytical skills.”

UC Riverside will begin building the school by enrolling approximately 30 students into the two-year M.P.P. program — a professional master’s program focused on giving policymakers the practical skills they will need to solve local and international issues — by fall 2014.

Eventually, the school plans to expand to include a doctoral program, along with other specialized professional programs — including an accelerated 15-month M.P.P. for professionals and a public policy doctoral minor for doctoral students in other departments, according to Deolalikar.

Because the new public policy school is a professional program, Deolalikar said it will use Professional Degree Supplemental Tuition fees to generate revenue.

“For master’s programs, students are paying professional fees,” he said. “This is actually a net revenue-generating program. In a budgetary crisis like this, it actually makes more sense to focus on professional programs.”

UC Riverside spokesperson Bettye Miller said the campus has started a search process for the school’s first dean and will select that person from the current faculty. Once the dean is selected, the school will build its faculty by creating joint appointments for existing faculty members from other campus departments.

“We will not need to hire new faculty — we have a ton of faculty interested in public policy,” Deolalikar said. “These are philosophers, engineers, economists — people who are passionate about their subjects and who are interested in public policy. It will be an organic process.”

Henry Brady, dean of the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley, said that while no immediate plans for collaboration between the two schools exist, it may be something to work toward.

This goal of academic collaboration is a part of Deolalikar’s greater vision for UC Riverside’s new school of public policy.

“Maybe there is something that inland California can learn from China or Brazil, and maybe China and Brazil can learn something from inland California,” he said. “We want the school to work on inland California problems but learn from global solutions. There is a good saying that is very relevant here: Think globally, act locally.”

Contact D.J. Sellarole at dsellarole@dailycal.org.

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The survey — released Tuesday by the Public Policy Institute of California — found that 68 percent of likely voters favor Brown’s proposal. If voters approve the measure in November, income taxes on the wealthy and the state sales tax will temporarily increase. If not, all public education systems, including K-12, UC and CSU, will face cuts in 2013.

The UC and the CSU would each be subjected to a $200 million cut if the initiative does not pass.

While the poll brings good news for supporters of greater public expenditure on education, Brown’s initiative is by no means sure to pass, said Henry Brady, Dean of UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy.

“The bad news for those who are in favor of this is that support (for ballot initiatives) tends to fall off as opponents begin running ads,” Brady said, noting that at least 60 percent approval is generally required at the outset in order for a ballot measure to be viable.

Brady said that while the poll “is somewhat encouraging for those who support extra revenues to fund the University of California,” it also reveals some of the measure’s vulnerabilities.

For example, Brady noted, opponents of the measure are likely to exploit Californians’ widespread resistance to an increase in the sales tax, which, at 64 percent disapproval in the survey, is the most unpopular aspect of Brown’s budget proposal.

The poll also showed that most likely voters believe the state could cut spending without reducing services. The image of the inefficient state could provide further leverage for the initiative’s opponents, Brady said.

Still, proponents of the ballot initiative have distinct advantages going into election season.

For one, many Californians are feeling the effects of the dramatic spending reductions the state has put into effect in recent years — 60 percent said their local government services had been significantly affected by budget cuts. According to Sonja Petek, a policy associate at the institute who helped design the survey, heightened awareness of budget cuts might have helped temper opposition to new state spending.

Brady agreed, noting that the fact that people are feeling the effects of cutbacks “gives Jerry Brown some real leverage.”

Brown’s generally favorable job ratings — 44 percent of likely voters approve of his performance, while 38 percent disapprove, according to the poll — are also good signs for supporters of the ballot measure, Brady said.

The UC Board of Regents and university administrators have not formally spoken out in support of the initiative, though the regents had generally positive feedback about Brown’s budget at their last meeting.

UC spokesperson Steve Montiel said in an email that the regents, who have discretion to endorse initiatives, will review proposed ballot measures at one of their upcoming meetings.

Additionally, although the poll found that 62 percent of likely voters said they were willing to pay higher taxes for K-12 education, only 46 percent said the same for higher education.

And while Brown’s tax initiative currently has broad appeal, public opinion could swing as election day nears.

“Nobody can predict what will happen in November,” Petek said.

Jason Willick covers higher education.

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In an email sent to academic titles, deans, directors and department chairs, Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost George Breslauer invited nominations and applications for the position, which will begin July 1, 2012. Currently, former dean Tom Goldstein is serving as interim dean.

According to the email, top candidates should have a record of distinction in journalism or journalism education, leadership skills and an understanding of the changing roles in media. Candidates must also be eligible for tenure in the graduate school, which means they should have published, edited, created or produced a superior body of work, Breslauer wrote.

“We are looking for someone who will carry on the traditions we have established here … both a commitment to the values and ethics of traditional journalism and the ability to adjust rapidly to the changes to our business that have come about because of technology,” said Robert Gunnison, director of school affairs at the graduate school and a member of the committee charged to review applications for the position.

The nine-member committee includes faculty from the school, student alumni and faculty from the broader campus and is chaired by Henry Brady, dean of the Goldman School of Public Policy, Gunnison said.

All nominations and letters of intent to apply must be received by Jan, 16, Breslauer said in the email. Those who wish to be considered as candidates must submit statements of interest and curriculum vitaes by Feb. 12.

“It is a national search and we expect to entertain candidates from just about any place,” Gunnison said. “The more candidates there are, the better the search will be.”

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The forum — which will take place from noon to 2 p.m. in Wheeler Auditorium — will feature Henry Brady, dean of the Goldman School of Public Policy, campus performance studies professor Catherine Cole, Student Regent Alfredo Mireles, Jr. and Student Regent-designate Jonathan Stein as speakers. Former Stanford University President Donald Kennedy, who is also an expert in environmental science and policy, was recently added to the speaker panel.

The Council of Deans Task Force on the Future of Public Universities has worked since June to organize a series of four forums on public higher education, according to Mark Richards, executive dean for the College of Letters and Science and an organizer of the series.

“We wanted to create a forum or venue to have an open and stimulating conversation about the future of public higher education not only just in Berkeley or California, but really the whole country,” he said.

The October forum focused on social inequality and opportunity and featured UC Berkeley professor of public policy and former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich. Forum organizers hope to increase the number of student attendees in contrast with the October forum’s low turnout by shortening presentations and including a group discussion segment moderated by ASUC President Vishalli Loomba where the audience can ask questions, Richards said.

Cole, who is currently researching ways of restructuring public education, said her talk will focus on citizenship and protest. She said such forums should have been held earlier after major protests such as the November 2009 Wheeler Hall occupation.

“It comes two years too late, but better late than never,” she said.

She added that in light of recent Occupy protests, it is “very hard for people to have that conversation when our campus doesn’t respect the rights of its own citizens.”

Mireles, who has visited every UC campus to speak about its financial situation, said he will be addressing dwindling state funding for the university.

“I, too, think that the UC should be free,” he said. “But if the state continues to cut and if we want to maintain our level of excellence, we have to be realistic.”

The drastic drop in funding is caused by a shortfall in state revenue, the majority of which comes from income and sales and corporate taxes. Brady’s talk will focus on the role taxation plays in supporting public higher education, which he describes as “the way we pay for things that we want and need.”

“Taxation is the price of civilization,” he said. “Public education is a public good that typically would not be supplied enough without some public support.”

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