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 probability of an unwelcome substantial fall in inflation over the next few quarters, though minor, exceeds that of a pickup in inflation.
have rarely fallen and certainly not by very much.
Even though some down payments are borrowed, it would take a large, and historically most unusual, fall in home prices to wipe out a significant part of home equity. Many of those who purchased their residence more than a year ago have equity buffers in their homes adequate to withstand any price decline other than a very deep one.
Fear and euphoria are dominant forces, and fear is many multiples the size of euphoria. Bubbles go up very slowly as euphoria builds. Then fear hits, and it comes down very sharply. When I started to look at that, I was sort of intellectually shocked. Contagion is the critical phenomenon which causes the thing to fall apart.
A slowing in the rate of inventory liquidation will induce a rise in industrial production if demand for those products is stable or is falling only moderately, ... That rise in production will, other things being equal, increase household income and spending.
History cautions that extended periods of low concern about credit risk have invariably been followed by reversal, with an attendant fall in the prices of risky assets.
Instead of trying to contain a putative bubble by drastic actions with largely unpredictable consequences, we chose, as we noted in our mid-1999 congressional testimony, to focus on policies to mitigate the fallout when it occurs and, hopefully, ease the transition to the next expansion.
We have to do it in a cautious, gradual way. ... (We) should go slowly and test the waters.
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.