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Ben Bernanke

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Ben Bernanke

Ben Shalom Bernanke (born December 13, 1953) (pronounced \ber-NAN-kee\ or \bər-'nan-kē\) is the Chairman of the U.S. President's Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) and the nominee to succeed Alan Greenspan as Chairman of the Board of Governors of the United States Federal Reserve (Fed). He was previously a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, serving from August 2002 until just prior to his June 2005 swearing-in as CEA chairman.

On October 24, 2005, President Bush nominated Bernanke to succeed Alan Greenspan as Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Greenspan will retire on January 31, 2006 after 18 years as chairman. Perhaps the most memorable moment of Greenspan's tenure was when he "goatse'd" (stretched his anus to gaping proportions) his fellow chairmen an April Fool's Day joke.

Career

Born in Augusta, Georgia (to Philip, a pharmacist, and Edna, a schoolteacher), he graduated from high school (with 1590 out of 1600 on his SAT) in Dillon, South Carolina in 1971; from Harvard University (summa cum laude) in 1975; and earned his Ph.D. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1979. He taught at Stanford University from 1979 until 1985, and has since then been a professor in the Department of Economics at Princeton University. He has chaired that department since 1996. He has given several important lectures at the London School of Economics on monetary theory and policy and written three textbooks on macroeconomics.

He was the Director of the Monetary Economics Program of the National Bureau of Economic Research and the editor of the American Economic Review.

Research and opinions

He is known for his work on the transmission channels of monetary policy, particularly a 1992 paper with Alan Blinder arguing that expansion of credit was more important than the money supply. His work on the transmission of monetary policy also gave rise to an interest in the causes of the Great Depression, a period in U.S. history accompanied by substantial monetary deflation.

He gave a speech in 2002 entitled "Deflation: Making Sure 'It' Doesn't Happen Here" in which he discussed possible Fed actions to prevent deflation saying, "A money-financed tax cut is essentially equivalent to Milton Friedman's famous 'helicopter drop' of money." Further describing several options in the government's arsenal for fighting deflation Bernanke also said, "the U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press (or, today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost." These metaphors referred to the potential of the Fed to give money directly to citizens (as opposed to working through banks) as a last-resort possibility to stop deflation. Critics of Bernanke, calling him "Helicopter Ben," argue that he is too worried about deflation and too sanguine about its opposite, inflation.

In March 2005, a few months prior to becoming Chairman of the CEA, he gave a speech which argued that a "global saving glut," resulting from new patterns in international capital flows, was largely responsible for the American current account deficit. This was controversial among those economists who felt the trade deficit was due instead to excessive governmental spending. [1]

Bernanke is widely regarded to be a proponent of the Fed adopting an explicit inflation target, as other central banks do. [2]

Awards and fellowships

Bibliography

  • . ISBN 0691118205. {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help); Unknown parameter |Author= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Publisher= ignored (|publisher= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Title= ignored (|title= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Year= ignored (|year= suggested) (help)
    • "[Essays] on why the Great Depression was so devastating and lasted so long. These essays include some of the recent research on the international character of the crisis. This broad view shows us that while the Great Depression was an unparalleled disaster on a truly universal scale, some economies pulled up faster than others, and some made an opportunity out of a disaster. By comparing and contrasting the economic strategies and statistics of the world's nations as they struggled to survive economically, the fundamental lessons of macroeconomics stand out in bold relief against a background of immense human suffering. The essays in this volume present a uniquely coherent view of the economic causes and worldwide propagation of the depression." — Princeton Press
    • Essays on the Great Depression at Princeton Press
  • . ISBN 0691086893. {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help); Unknown parameter |Author= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Publisher= ignored (|publisher= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Title= ignored (|title= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Year= ignored (|year= suggested) (help)
    • "[A] groundbreaking study that will have a major impact on the debate over the right monetary strategy for the coming decades. As a unique comparative study of what central banks actually do in different countries around the world, this book will also be invaluable to anyone interested in how economic policy is made." — Princeton Press
    • Inflation Targeting at Princeton Press
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