Personal Life
Akerlof was born in New Haven, Connecticut, United States, the son of Rosalie (née Hirschfelder) and Gosta Akerlof, who was a chemist and inventor. His mother was Jewish, from a family that had immigrated from Germany. His father was a Swedish immigrant. Akerlof graduated from the Lawrenceville School from which he received the School's highest award (the Lawrenceville Medal) in 2002, and received his B.A. degree from Yale University in 1962, and his Ph.D. degree from MIT in 1966, and has taught at the London School of Economics. His wife Janet Yellen is the current Vice Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and a professor of economics at UC Berkeley, and was the former President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and former Chair of President Bill Clinton's Council of Economic Advisors. His son Robert Akerlof is currently a postdoctoral associate in Applied Economics at the MIT Sloan School of Management.
Professor Akerlof has spoken at many distinguished events, including Warwick Economics Summit in February 2012 with a talk entitled "Phishing for Phools".
Read more about this topic: George Akerlof
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