Biography

Ben Shalom Bernanke ( bər-NANG-kee; born December 13, 1953) is an American economist who served as the 14th chairman of the Federal Reserve from 2006 to 2014. After leaving the Federal Reserve, he was appointed a distinguished fellow at the Brookings Institution. During his tenure as chairman, Bernanke oversaw the Federal Reserve's response to the late-2000s financial crisis, for which he was named the 2009 Time Person of the Year. 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. Bernanke was awarded the 2022 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, jointly with Douglas Diamond and Philip H. Dybvig, "for research on banks and financial crises", more specifically for his analysis of the Great Depression.

From August 5, 2002, until June 21, 2005, he was a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, proposed the Bernanke doctrine, and first discussed "the Great Moderation"—the theory that traditional business cycles have declined in volatility in recent decades through structural changes that have occurred in the international economy, particularly increases in the economic stability of developing nations, diminishing the influence of macroeconomic (monetary and fiscal) policy.

Bernanke then served as chairman of President George W. Bush's Council of Economic Advisers before President Bush nominated him to succeed Alan Greenspan as chairman of the United States Federal Reserve. His first term began on February 1, 2006. Bernanke was confirmed for a second term as chairman on January 28, 2010, after being renominated by President Barack Obama, who later referred to him as "the epitome of calm." His second term ended on January 31, 2014, when he was succeeded by Janet Yellen on February 3, 2014.Bernanke wrote about his time as chairman of the Federal Reserve in his 2015 book, The Courage to Act, in which he revealed that the world's economy came close to collapse in 2007 and 2008. Bernanke asserts that it was only the novel efforts of the Fed (cooperating with other US agencies and agencies of other governments) that prevented an economic catastrophe greater than the Great Depression.