Alan Greenspan, the former head of the Federal Reserve, has died from complications of Parkinson’s disease.
Greenspan was 100 years old.
The economist’s death was announced by his wife, Andrea Mitchell, NBC News reported.
She said he died in their home on Monday morning.
“He 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,” Mitchell wrote in a statement.
“To me he was my husband, who shaped my life from our very first date in 1984. He had ‘irrational exuberance’ for baseball, the Washington Commanders, tennis, golf and music, especially jazz,” she went on to say. “He will be remembered for his brilliance and his kindness. Being his life partner was the joy of my life.”
Greenspan was born in Washington Heights in New York City in 1926. He attended the Juilliard School and played jazz saxophone and clarinet. Greenspan, however, took a different path for his future career, studying economics at New York University, earning a bachelor’s degree in 1948 and, two years later, a master’s degree. He worked on his doctorate at Columbia University, studying under future Fed chairman Arthur Burns, NBC News reported.
Greenspan left Columbia in 1953 and worked for an economic consulting firm, which would eventually become Townsend-Greenspan Co, Inc., and within five years was named president and owner of the firm.
The company had clients such as Mobil Oil and Alcoa, The Wall Street Journal said.
He became an advisor to Richard Nixon during his 1968 presidential campaign and helped with the presidential transition, but was not officially part of the administration, despite continuing to advise the president informally, according to NBC News.
Greenspan served as President Gerald Ford’s chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors from 1974 to 1977, helping reduce inflation from 11% to 6.5%.
He left Washington at the start of President Jimmy Carter’s term, returning to his consulting firm and becoming an adjunct professor at New York University, where he finally earned his doctorate in economics. Instead of a traditional thesis, for which Arthur Burns would tease Greenspan over his slow progress on the paper, the school accepted a collection of previously published articles to earn the degree, The Wall Street Journal reported.
A decade later, Greenspan returned to Washington as part of President Ronald Reagan’s administration, replacing Paul Volcker as the chairman of the Federal Reserve.
When the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost more than 22%, Greenspan, as NBC News explained, “kept the markets liquid” in a move now known as the “Greenspan put.”
Greenspan was called a “rock star” by The Economist while serving under President Bill Clinton.
He also saw the Federal Reserve through the rise of the internet, the “dotcom” bubble, the subsequent burst, and the Sept. 11 attacks.
After five consecutive four-year terms, Greenspan retired in 2006.
Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman called Greenspan the greatest central banker of all time when he retired, The Wall Street Journal reported.
While there were countless successes during Greenspan’s term leading the Fed, there were also misses, including coming under fire for the financial collapse of 2007-08 and for missing the 2000s housing bubble, NBC News said.
The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission in 2011 said the crisis was triggered by Greenspan’s failure to discourage trading in securities backed by the subprime-mortgage boom.
“More than 30 years of deregulation and reliance on self-regulation by financial institutions, championed by former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan and others, supported by successive administrations and Congresses, and actively pushed by the powerful financial industry at every turn, had stripped away key safeguards, which could have helped avoid catastrophe,” the report said.
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