Treasury secretary nominee Janet Yellen is known for her inclusive view of policymaking, expert says

EVANSTON, Ill. — Annelise Riles, executive director of Northwestern University’s Roberta Buffett Institute for Global affairs and an expert on the views of financial regulators and central bankers, is available to comment on the nomination of Janet Yellen as Treasury secretary.

Quote from Professor Riles:
“Throughout her career, Janet Yellen has taken a remarkably broad view of who is the constituency of regulators — at a time when the mainstream view among both academics and policy officials was that the relevant actors were banks and Wall Street, Yellen emphasized the needs and perspective of ordinary citizens, workers and consumers as well.

“The challenge now will be to bring that wider constituency into a relationship of trust, to find ways to consult and engage the public at large, just as regulators routinely consult and engage the financial industry. This will require diversifying the regulatory staff, bringing a broader range of disciplines and methodologies such as anthropology, law, psychology and history into regulatory work, and creating platforms and forums for seriously engaging the interested public in a two-way conversation.”

About Annelise Riles
Annelise Riles, PhD, J.D., is executive director of Northwestern University’s Roberta Buffett Institute for Global Affairs and author of Financial Citizenship: Experts, Publics & The Politics of Central Banking. Media interested in interviewing Professor Riles should contact Mohamed Abdelfattah at mohamed@northwestern.edu.