Janet Yellen will become the first woman to hold the most powerful job in the world economy after administration officials said that President Barack Obama would nominate her as chair of the US Federal Reserve.

美国政府官员表示，巴拉克·奥巴马(Barack Obama)将提名珍妮特·耶伦(Janet Yellen)出任美联储(Fed)主席，意味着后者将成为首位执掌这个世界经济领域权势最大的职位的女性。

Mr Obama will formally nominate Ms Yellen at a ceremony at the White House on Wednesday. Current chairman Ben Bernanke will also attend.

奥巴马将在周三白宫举行的一场仪式上正式提名耶伦。现任美联储主席本·伯南克(Ben Bernanke)也将出席这个仪式。

The choice of Ms Yellen – an architect of the Fed’s aggressive monetary stimulus in recent years as the present vice-chair – will redouble its commitment to those policies and may lengthen the period for which US interest rates stay at zero.

作为现任美联储副主席，耶伦参与设计了美联储近年来的激进货币刺激政策。任命耶伦，意味着美联储将延续这些政策，并可能延长美国维持零利率的时间。

Her appointment represents a dramatic change of fortune after Mr Obama’s preferred candidate, former Treasury secretary Lawrence Summers, was forced to withdraw on September 15 following strong opposition from Democratic senators.

耶伦的任命颇富戏剧色彩。奥巴马此前青睐的人癣前财长劳伦斯·萨默斯(Lawrence Summers)因遭到民主党参议员的强烈反对，被迫于9月15日退出角逐。

But Ms Yellen may still face a difficult confirmation, with a senior Republican on the Senate banking committee, Bob Corker, suggesting he would vote against her. “I voted against vice-chairman Yellen’s original nomination to the Fed in 2010 because of her dovish views on monetary policy. We will closely examine her record since that time, but I am not aware of anything that demonstrates her views have changed,” Mr Corker said.

但耶伦的任命在得到确认前，也可能面对考验。参议院银行委员会(Senate Banking Committee)的资深共和党委员鲍勃·科克(Bob Corker)就表示，将投反对票。科克说：“2010年我曾经投票反对提名耶伦担任美联储副主席，原因是她在货币政策上的观点过于温和。我们之后密切关注了她的言行，但我没有发现任何表明她观点改变的证据。”

Mr Bernanke will step down in January with a likely reputation as one of the greatest chairs of the Fed after he helped the US to navigate the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

伯南克将于明年1月离任。由于引导美国渡过了大萧条以来最严重的经济危机，他可能获得史上最伟大美联储主席的美誉。

Ms Yellen, 67, will be appointed to a four-year term as chair of the Fed that runs until January 2018. She will take over an economy still suffering from a 7.3 per cent unemployment rate more than four years after the end of a deep recession.

67岁的耶伦将在美联储主席的位置上度过四年任期，直到2018年1月。她接手的美国经济在结束严重衰退的四年多后，仍然被高达7.3%的失业率所困扰。

Over the coming years, her challenge will be to bring the economy back to full employment, and then manage an exit from unconventional monetary policy without triggering a bout of inflation.

在未来几年，她面临的挑战是让美国经济重返充分就业的状态，然后在不引发通胀的前提下成功退出非传统货币政策。