Bernankenstein’s Monster

Abstract

From Alan Greenspan to Benjamin Bernanke. The transition at the Federal Reserve is from insider to academic, from man of action to man of ideas. Greenspan’s PhD was awarded by New York University in 1977 as a decoration; he didn’t do any work for it. Bernanke, on the other hand, has stellar credentials: summa cum laude from Harvard, PhD from MIT, professorship at Princeton. But apart from a few months at the Council of Economic Advisers, Bernanke has never run anything larger than an economics department. Greenspan ran the Fed for 19 years without ever losing a vote.