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
While this stellar non-inflationary economic expansion still appears remarkably stress-free on the surface, there are developing imbalances that give us pause,
The recent evidence increasingly suggests that an economic expansion is already well under way, although an array of influences unique to this business cycle seems likely to moderate its speed
Although the global economic expansion appears to have been on a reasonably firm path through the summer months, the recent surge in energy prices will undoubtedly be a drag from now on.
Demand has been growing quite strongly in recent months, and the (Fed monetary-policy committee)? will have to judge whether that pace of expansion will be maintained (and), if so, whether it will continue to be met by solid productivity growth, as it apparently has been.
Our judgment is that the level of consumption growth...will slow down, and the dramatic expansion in capital investment will slow down, ... Something will eventually change the pattern, but there are a number of different ways that can happen.
It is much too soon to conclude that these concerns are behind us, ... We cannot yet be sure that the slower expansion of domestic final demand, at a pace more in line with potential supply, will persist.
The Federal Reserve has responded to the balance of market forces by gradually raising the federal funds rate over the past year, ... Certainly, to have done otherwise -- to have held the federal funds rate at last year's level even as credit demands and market interest rates rose -- would have required an inappropriately inflationary expansion of liquidity.
A good part of this expansion is a direct function of the decline in real equity premiums. That cannot go on indefinitely.
Indeed, our goal, in responding to the complexity of current economic forces, is to extend the expansion by containing imbalances and avoiding the very recession that would complete a business cycle,
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.