Ben Bernanke

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Ben Bernanke
14th Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve
Incumbent
Assumed office  February 1, 2006
Preceded by	Alan Greenspan
Succeeded by	incumbent
Born	December 13, 1953 Augusta, Georgia
Spouse	Anna Friedmann
Profession	Macroeconomist

Ben Shalom Bernanke (born December 13, 1953) (pronounced \ber-NAN-kee\, \bər-'nan-kē\ or \bɚ.ˈnæn.ki\), is an American macroeconomist who is the current Chairman of the Board of Governors of the United States Federal Reserve ("the Fed"). He was previously Chairman of the U.S. President's Council of Economic Advisers (CEA), and member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, On October 24, 2005, President George W. Bush nominated Bernanke to succeed Alan Greenspan as Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Bernanke was sworn in on February 1, 2006 after the Senate's confirmation by a voice vote on January 31, 2006.

Contents 1 Career 2 Awards and fellowships 3 Bibliography 4 References 5 External links

[edit] Career

Born in Augusta, Georgia (to Philip Richard, a pharmacist, and Edna Rivy (Friedman), a schoolteacher), he graduated from a high school (with 1590 out of 1600 on his SAT) in Dillon, South Carolina in 1971, and throughout his high school years was a member of the North American Federation of Temple Youth, a Reform Jewish organization.^{[citation needed]} He graduated summa cum laude from Harvard University in 1975 (where he spent his undergraduate years in Winthrop House) and later earned his PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1979. He taught at the Stanford Graduate School of Business from 1979 until 1985, was a visiting professor at New York University and has since then been a tenured professor in the Department of Economics at Princeton University. He chaired that department from 1996 until September 2002, when he went on public service leave. He resigned his position at Princeton July 1, 2005.[1] He has given several important lectures at the London School of Economics on monetary theory and policy and has written three textbooks on macroeconomics, and one on microeconomics. He was the Director of the Monetary Economics Program of the National Bureau of Economic Research and the editor of the American Economic Review.

He has a strong interest in the causes of the Great Depression, a period in U.S. history accompanied by substantial monetary deflation as a result of deliberate actions of the Federal Reserve. On Milton Friedman's ninetieth birthday, Nov. 8, 2002, he stated: "Let me end my talk by abusing slightly my status as an official representative of the Federal Reserve. I would like to say to Milton and Anna: Regarding the Great Depression. You're right, we did it. We're very sorry. But thanks to you, we won't do it again." [2] [3] [4]

In 2002, when the word "deflation" began appearing in the business news, Bernanke gave a speech about deflation. In that speech, he mentioned that the government in a fiat money system owns the physical means of creating money. Control of the means of production for money implies that the government can always avoid deflation by simply issuing more money. (He referred to a statement made by Milton Friedman about using a "helicopter drop" of money into the economy to fight deflation.) Bernanke's critics have since referred to him as "Helicopter Ben" or to his "helicopter printing press". In a footnote to his speech, Bernanke noted that "people know that inflation erodes the real value of the government's debt and, therefore, that it is in the interest of the government to create some inflation." [5]

He is believed to be less ideologically rigid than Alan Greenspan and has been reluctant to weigh in on political issues. For example, while Greenspan publicly supported the Bush tax cuts, Bernanke, when questioned about taxation policy, said that it was none of his business, his exclusive remit being monetary policy, and said that fiscal policy and wider society related issues were what politicians were for and got elected for. Indeed, in his undergraduate economics textbooks he somewhat distances himself from the overt economic libertarianism of Greenspan and stresses that Adam Smith was in fact quite concerned about things like relative inequality^{[citation needed]}.

His first months as chairman of the Fed were marked by difficulties communicating with the media. An advocate of more transparent Fed policy, he had to back away from his initial idea of stating clearer inflation goals as such statements tended to drastically affect the stock market. Maria Bartiromo disclosed on CNBC their private conversation on Fed policy, and he has since been criticized for making public statements about Fed direction.[6] According to NewsMax.com in January 2007, economists believe that Bernanke has recovered from the communication blunders and are now giving him high marks for his handling of the economy thus far. ^[1]

[edit] Awards and fellowships

• Fellow, Econometric Society (1997)

[edit] Bibliography

• Ben Bernanke (2005). Essays on the Great Depression. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-11820-5. 
• Ben Bernanke, Thomas Laubach, Frederic Mishkin, and Adam Posen (2005). Inflation Targeting: Lessons from the International Experience. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-08689-3. 
• Ben Bernanke and Alan Blinder (1992). ""The Federal Funds Rate and the Channels of Monetary Transmission"". Economic Review 82, no. 4: 901–921. 
• Andrew B. Abel, Ben S. Bernanke (2001). "Macroeconomics". Addison Wesley. ISBN 0-201-44133-0. 
• Ben S. Bernanke, Robert H. Frank (2007). "Principles of Macro Economics". McGraw Hill. ISBN-13: 978-0-07-319397-7. 
• Ben S. Bernanke, Robert H. Frank (2007). "Principles of Micro Economics". McGraw Hill. ISBN-13: 978-0-07-319398-4. 

[edit] References

• Andrews, Edmund L. (Nov. 5, 2005). "All for a more open Fed". New Straits Times, p. 21.

[edit] External links

• Bernanke Takes the Reins - Yale Economic Review
• Bernanke Biography at whitehouse.gov
• "A Crash Course for Central Bankers" by Ben Bernanke in Foreign Policy
• "Downside Danger" by Ben Bernanke in Foreign Policy
• Bernanke's Princeton homepage
• Bernanke's "printing press" speech
• Address by Bernanke titled "Skills, Ownership, and Economic Security" with summary, video, and transcript.
• Profile of Ben Bernanke
• Bernanke steps into Greenspan's big shoes - The Economist Global Agenda
• At the Fed, an Unknown Became a Safe Choice - The New York Times
• The Ben Bernanke Grand Experiment
• Describes his early years
• Bernanke Papers and Sources

Preceded by Alan Greenspan	Chairman of the Federal Reserve 2006 – present	Incumbent
Preceded by John E. Potter	United States order of precedence as of 2006	Succeeded by James Connaughton
Preceded by Harvey S. Rosen	Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers 2005-2006	Succeeded by Edward P. Lazear

Chairmen of the Federal Reserve
Hamlin • Harding • Crissinger • Young • Meyer • Black • Eccles • McCabe • Martin • Burns • Miller • Volcker • Greenspan • Bernanke