Former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan Dead At 100

Former Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan, who led the central bank for nearly two decades across four presidencies, has died at the age of 100 from complications due to Parkinson’s Disease, his wife, Andrea Mitchell, confirmed in a statement.

An economist famous for his often inscrutable style of communication, known as “Greenspeak,” Greenspan served as Fed chief from 1987 to 2006, a mostly prosperous era for the U.S. He was also the chief economist for President Gerald Ford.

But the 2008 financial crisis tarnished his reputation as critics highlighted the Fed’s failure to rein in irresponsible mortgage-lending practices and risky financial products in the lead-up to the collapse. In October 2008, Greenspan testified before Congress that he had been “partially wrong” in his push for deregulation.

“Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders’ equity, myself especially, are in a state of shocked disbelief,” said Greenspan, a conservative acolyte of philosopher Ayn Rand, a leading advocate of free-market capitalism.

“I’d been going for 40 years or so with considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well,” he added.

Mitchell, in her statement, said Greenspan was “a giant of a man who helped shape the U.S. economy for decades under presidents of both parties, but was always honest in acknowledging his mistakes.”

Greenspan was born on March 6, 1926, in New York City. He attended Juilliard School, where he played clarinet and saxophone, but ultimately decided to pursue a career in economics. After getting a Ph.D. from New York University, he worked on Wall Street and then spent roughly 30 years in economic consulting. During that time, he worked as a domestic policy adviser to Richard Nixon’s 1968 presidential campaign and as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under Ford.

He became head of the Fed in 1987, after which he steered the economy through a number of crises, including the stock market crash the year he took office, as well as the burst of the dot-com bubble.

Greenspan’s mystique reached almost mythic proportions during the height of his influence, with presidential candidate John McCain in 2007 remarking that he would appoint the former Fed chief to help review the tax code under any circumstance.

“If he’s alive or dead, it doesn’t matter,” McCain joked. “If he's dead, just prop him up and put some dark glasses on him like, like ‘Weekend at Bernie’s.’”

Due to his long tenure and iconic reputation, Greenspan became nearly synonymous with the central bank. His successor, Ben Bernanke, recalled in his book, “The Courage to Act,” when his daughter told a friend that her father was the Fed chair: “The friend, dumbstruck, replied, ‘Your dad is Alan Greenspan?!’”

Despite his penchant for opaque communications, he put the Fed on a path of transparency that steadily increased under each of the central bank chairs who came after him — though new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh has expressed interest in partially reversing that trend.

Following pressure from prominent lawmakers and some apparent press leaks, Greenspan started the practice of immediately announcing the Fed’s policy decisions in 1994. Such announcements, now widely anticipated and routine events, have since become a policy tool in and of themselves by shaping market expectations.

The central bank also began publishing detailed minutes three weeks after policy meetings, as well as full meeting transcripts with a five-year delay.

Since Greenspan, the Fed has moved further in favor of disclosure, including regular press conferences and economic projections. The extent to which the central bank will continue those newer practices is now under review by Warsh.

Warsh, before becoming chair, has pointed to another key part of Greenspan’s legacy: the former central banker’s decision to hold interest rates steady in the 1990s based on his vindicated assessment that the U.S. economy was experiencing a surge in productivity that wouldn’t require interest rate hikes, despite faster growth that could have been a harbinger of inflation.

The new Fed chair has also more broadly cited Greenspan as an example.

“I’ve known five of my predecessors in this job, some of them quite well,” Warsh said during his swearing-in ceremony last month. “But Chairman Greenspan was the first to tell me and show me what this role demands. Like Alan, I intend to fill the role of chairman with energy and purpose, just the way Chairman Greenspan did.”

The Fed, in a statement, expressed “deep sadness" at the passing of Greenspan.

“His contributions to monetary policy and economic thought left a lasting mark on this institution, on the broader field of economics, and on the country,” the statement said. “Under his leadership, the Federal Reserve achieved a sustained era of price stability that supported economic growth and helped anchor the public’s confidence in the institution.”

“Chairman Greenspan’s legacy endures at the Federal Reserve — in those he mentored directly, in the economists and public servants he inspired, and in the frameworks and practices he helped shape.”

Mitchell called being Greenspan’s spouse the “joy of my life.”

“To me, he was my husband, who shaped my life from our very first date in 1984,” she said. “He had ‘irrational exuberance’ for baseball, the Washington Commanders, tennis, golf and music, especially jazz. He will be remembered for his brilliance and his kindness.”