Alan Greenspan

Alan Greenspan
Alan Greenspanis an American economist who served as Chairman of the Federal Reserve of the United States from 1987 to 2006. He currently works as a private adviser and provides consulting for firms through his company, Greenspan Associates LLC. First appointed Federal Reserve chairman by President Ronald Reagan in August 1987, he was reappointed at successive four-year intervals until retiring on January 31, 2006, after the second-longest tenure in the position...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEconomist
Date of Birth6 March 1926
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
The U.S. economy appears to have withstood a set of blows -- major declines in equity markets, a sharp retrenchment in investment spending, and the tragic terrorist attacks of last September -- that in previous business cycles almost surely would have induced a severe contraction,
There is no evidence that the business cycle has been repealed.
Although the business cycle has not disappeared, flexibility has made the economy more resilient to shocks and more stable overall during the past couple of decades,
Despite the disruptions engendered by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, the typical dynamics of the business cycle have reemerged and are prompting a firming in economic activity,
I think the IMF has done as much as it thought it understood it could do, ... I don't know what alternative policies could have been implemented which could have significantly altered the pattern that emerged once the vicious cycle began to accumulate to the degree that it did.
It is becoming increasingly difficult to deny that something profoundly different than the postwar business cycle has emerged in recent years,
We have to do it in a cautious, gradual way. ... (We) should go slowly and test the waters.
The probability of an unwelcome substantial fall in inflation over the next few quarters, though minor, exceeds that of a pickup in inflation.
The scale and scope of higher education in America was being shaped by the recognition that research -- the creation of knowledge --complemented teaching and training -- the diffusion of knowledge,
These changes, assisted by improved prices in asset markets, have left households and businesses better positioned than they were earlier to boost outlays as their wariness about the economic environment abates,
these borrowers, and the institutions that service them, could be exposed to significant losses.
The shock of September 11, by markedly raising the degree of uncertainty about the future, has the potential to result, for a time, in pronounced disengagement from future commitments,
The United States is currently in its ninth year of economic expansion, an exemplary accomplishment by any standard. Growth of output has remained vigorous, unemployment is lower than it has been in nearly thirty years, and yet, despite the tautness in labor markets, there have been no obvious signs of emerging inflation pressures,
The United States has been in the forefront of the postwar opening up of international markets, much to our, and the rest of the world's, benefit, ... It would be a great tragedy were that process reversed.