Alan Greenspan

Tenure: Aug. 11, 1987 to Jan. 31, 2006

Mr. Greenspan presides over a “Great Moderation” – nearly two decades of strong growth, modest inflation and low unemployment, with just a few bumps along the way.

October 1987: Shortly into Mr. Greenspan’s tenure, the Fed eases rates after the stock market crashes.



July 1988: In Mr. Greenspan’s early years as Fed chairman, inflation rises above 5 percent amid strong growth and doubts about the Fed’s post-Volcker backbone.

Mr. Greenspan’s response, a sharp increase in interest rates, pushed the economy into recession in the early 1990s, but it consolidates the Fed’s control. Neither inflation nor interest rates have returned to those heights in the last 25 years, and the recession is followed by the longest peacetime expansion in the nation’s history.

July 1996: Mr. Greenspan makes a winning bet in the mid-1990s, resisting pressure to raise interest rates as unemployment declines. He argues that increased productivity, including the fruits of the computer revolution, have increased the pace of sustainable growth. Indeed, the Fed finds itself debating whether there is such a thing as not enough inflation, and a new Fed governor named Janet L. Yellen plays an important role in convincing Mr. Greenspan that a little inflation helped to lubricate economic growth.

December 1996: Mr. Greenspan warns of the danger of “irrational exuberance” in financial markets, an admonition that goes unheeded. The Fed decides that popping bubbles is not part of its job description, leading critics to charge that Mr. Greenspan’s monetary policies spawned an era of booms and busts, culminating in the 2008 financial crisis.

June 2003: Struggling to revive the economy after a brief recession, the Fed cuts its benchmark rate to 1 percent, then regarded as the lowest viable level. Ben S. Bernanke, in his first stint at the Fed, presents a paper exploring supplemental strategies a central bank could use to stimulate the economy after pushing rates to the floor.