Ben Bernanke

Economist

1953-12-13

Ben Bernanke is an American economist who served as chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve from 2006 to 2014. He played a central role in monetary policy during the global financial crisis and later received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.

Quotes by Ben Bernanke

Certainly, 9 percent unemployment and very slow growth is not a good situation.
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In many spheres of human endeavor, from science to business to education to economic policy, good decisions depend on good measurement.
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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.
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Clear communication is always important in central banking, but it can be especially important when economic conditions call for further policy stimulus but the policy rate is already at its effective lower bound.
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The Mexican debt crisis, Latin American debt crisis, the crises of the 1990s, the Wall Street stock market crash, and other events should have reminded us, and did remind us, that financial instability remains a concern, remains a problem.
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History proves... that a smart central bank can protect the economy and the financial sector from the nastier side effects of a stock market collapse.
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Only a strong economy can create higher asset values and sustainably good returns for savers.
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Economics has many substantive areas of knowledge where there is agreement, but also contains areas of controversy. That's inescapable.
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Economic management involves the operation of economic frameworks in real time - for example, in the private sector, the management of complex financial institutions or, in the public sector, the day-to-day supervision of those institutions.
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Stronger regulation and supervision aimed at problems with underwriting practices and lenders' risk management would have been a more effective and surgical approach to constraining the housing bubble than a general increase in interest rates.
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Achieving price stability is not only important in itself, it is also central to attaining the Federal Reserve's other mandate objectives of maximum sustainable employment and moderate long-term interest rates.
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The lesson of history is that you do not get a sustained economic recovery as long as the financial system is in crisis.
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As you know, in the latter part of 2008 and early 2009, the Federal Reserve took extraordinary steps to provide liquidity and support credit market functioning, including the establishment of a number of emergency lending facilities and the creation or extension of currency swap agreements with 14 central banks around the world.
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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.
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In the future, financial firms of any type whose failure would pose a systemic risk must accept especially close regulatory scrutiny of their risk-taking.
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Textbooks describe economics as the study of the allocation of scarce resources. That definition may be the 'what,' but it certainly is not the 'why.'
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Identity theft is a serious crime that affects millions of Americans each year.
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If two people always agree, one of them is redundant.
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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.
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Preventing liquidation of an unbalanced market will leave you in tears.
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