Fed’s key monetary policy making panel officially selects Yellen as its new chair

Fed’s key monetary policy making panel officially selects Yellen as its new chairThe Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the key monetary policy making panel of the US Federal Reserve, has officially chosen Janet Yellen as its new chair.

The central bank of the world's biggest economy has said in a statement that its Federal Open Market Committee unanimously selected Yellen to replace Ben S. Bernanke.

Yellen, who served the central bank as vice chair for around four years, will be sworn in as the Fed's new chair on February 3, 2014. In the interim week-end period, she will remain as vice chair of the Fed but with the authority to exercise all the power and duties of the chair.

Bernanke, a Princeton economics professor, had ascended to the top job at the Fed eight years. Many analysts believe that he departed as one of the finest chairmen in the Fed's hundred-year history.

Just Two years into his tenure, the US economy slipped to reach near-collapse levels in the summer of 2008. But, he played a successful key role in averting the country's financial meltdown and pulling the economy out of recession.

Dean Croushore, a professor of economics at the University of Richmond, said, "He kept us out of Great Depression II. I think Ben's greatest contribution is ... that he was creative, that he thought about the impact of the shock across many dimensions."

In his memoir tiled "Decision Points," former US President George W. Bush recalled how Bernanke convinced him that the country needed bold steps to deal with financial slump.