Ben Bernanke
Ben Bernanke
Ben Shalom Bernankeis an American economist at the Brookings Institution who served two terms as chairman of the Federal Reserve, the central bank of the United States, from 2006 to 2014. During his tenure as chairman, Bernanke oversaw the Federal Reserve's response to the late-2000s financial crisis. Before becoming Federal Reserve chairman, Bernanke was a tenured professor at Princeton University and chaired the department of economics there from 1996 to September 2002, when he went on public service leave...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth13 December 1953
CityAugusta, GA
CountryUnited States of America
Most of the policies that support robust economic growth in the long run are outside the province of the central bank.
The actions taken by central banks and other authorities to stabilize a panic in the short run can work against stability in the long run if investors and firms infer from those actions that they will never bear the full consequences of excessive risk-taking.
The economist John Maynard Keynes said that in the long run, we are all dead. If he were around today he might say that, in the long run, we are all on Social Security and Medicare.
The more important reason is that the research itself provides an important long-run perspective on the issues that we face on a day-to-day basis.
Monetary policy cannot do much about long-run growth, all we can try to do is to try to smooth out periods where the economy is depressed because of lack of demand
Economics is a very difficult subject. I've compared it to trying to learn how to repair a car when the engine is running.
The Depression was an incredibly dramatic episode - an era of stock-market crashes, breadlines, bank runs and wild currency speculation, with the storm clouds of war gathering ominously in the background... For my money, few periods are so replete with human interest.
The public in many countries is understandably concerned by the commitment of substantial government resources to aid the financial industry when other industries receive little or no assistance. This disparate treatment, unappealing as it is, appears unavoidable.
The role of liquidity in systemic events provides yet another reason why, in the future, a more system wide or macroprudential approach to regulation is needed.
The stress on the financial system in the fall of 2007 was significant, but not so significant as to threaten the overall stability of the U.S. economy, although it did lead to the beginning of a recession at the end of 2007.
The world has a great deal more to offer than money.
There will not be an automatic increase in interest rate when unemployment hits 6.5%.
Equally important, stable prices allow people to rely on the dollar as a measure of value when making long-term contracts, engaging in long-term planning or lending for long periods.
Following an extended boom in housing, the demand for homes began to weaken in mid-2005. By the middle of 2006, sales of both new and existing homes had fallen about 15 percent below their peak levels. Homebuilders responded to the fall in demand by sharply curtailing construction.