Alan Greenspan, who served as the 13th chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006, passed away this morning at the age of 100.
Greenspan worked as an analyst at the National Industrial Conference Board (now known as the Conference Board), from 1948 to 1953 before launching his economics consulting firm Townsend-Greenspan & Co. Inc. in 1955. He served as chairman and president of his company through 1987, stepping away from 1974 to 1977 to serve as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Gerald Ford.
An acolyte of the libertarian thought leader Ayn Rand, Greenspan was nominated by President Ronald Reagan in August 1987 to succeed Paul Volcker as Federal Reserve chairman. He was reappointed in a quartet of successive four-year intervals until before his retirement in January 2006. His chairmanship coincided with multiple financial crises including the 1987 stock market crash, the dot-com bubble, the 9/11 disruptions, and the growth of the housing bubble.
Greenspan’s chairmanship was marked with praise and criticism from both sides of the political aisle. President George H.W. Bush blamed his failed 1992 re-election campaign on a sluggish economy weighed down by Greenspan’s Fed policies, claiming, “I reappointed him, and he disappointed me.” Yet his son President George W. Bush enabled him to serve a fifth term.
Greenspan’s 18.5-year chairmanship was the second longest in the central bank’s history, behind William McChesney Martin’s 1951-1970 tenure. After leaving the Fed, Greenspan launched the economic consulting firm Greenspan Associates LLC.
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