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Incoming Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen will testify before US lawmakers on February 11 and again on February 13 in what will probably be her first public comments on monetary policy and the economy after taking the reins at the US central bank.
Yellen, who succeeds Ben Bernanke today to become the first woman to head the Fed, will break a nearly three-month-long silence with the two days of testimony on the Fed’s semi-annual monetary policy report.
Yellen is to appear before the House Financial Services Committee at 10 am (1500 GMT) on February 11, according to a statement yesterday by the committee’s chairman. She faces the Senate Banking Committee at 10:30 am on February 13, a committee aide said.
Yellen, the Fed’s current vice chair, last spoke publicly at her Senate confirmation hearing on November 14, before the Fed took its first step to wind down its massive bond-buying programme.
Since then she has had little exposure besides an interview published in Time Magazine this month in which she suggested she expects the US economy to grow at a pace of at least 3%.
A strong supporter of the Fed’s very easy policies, Yellen will be tasked with continuing to ramp down a huge bond-buying programme and, later, raising interest rates and shrinking the Fed’s swollen balance sheet.