Alan Greenspan, Longtime Head of the U.S. Federal Reserve, Dies at 100

This article contains affiliate links; if you click such a link and make a purchase, we may earn a commission.

“Hearst Magazines and AOL may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links.”

Alan Greenspan, an economist who served as chairman of the Federal Reserve for nearly two decades and helped shape American monetary policy through some of the most consequential periods in modern economic history, died Monday at the age of 100. His wife, NBC News correspondent Andrea Mitchell, announced his death in a statement, confirming the cause was complications from Parkinson’s disease.

Born on March 6, 1926, in the Washington Heights neighborhood of New York City, Greenspan was the son of Herbert Greenspan, a stockbroker of Romanian Jewish descent, and Rose Goldsmith, of Hungarian Jewish descent. After his parents divorced, he was raised by his mother in the household of his maternal grandparents. He went on to study clarinet at the Juilliard School before enrolling at New York University’s Stern School of Business, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in economics summa cum laude in 1948 and a master’s degree in economics in 1950. He received his Ph.D. in economics from NYU in 1977.

Before joining the Federal Reserve, Greenspan spent more than three decades at Townsend-Greenspan & Co., an economic consulting firm he led in New York City, interrupted only by a stint as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Gerald Ford from 1974 to 1977.

Greenspan served as the 13th chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006, appointed first by President Ronald Reagan and subsequently reappointed by Presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush. His tenure was the second-longest in the position’s history, just short of William McChesney Martin, who was nominated by President Truman and served from 1951 to 1970. As Fed chairman, Greenspan presided over one of the longest economic expansions in American history, a boom that ran from 1991 to 2001. His handling of the 1987 stock market crash, in which he moved quickly to shore up liquidity, won widespread praise.

His legacy, however, was complicated by the 2007-2008 global financial crisis. Critics argued that his advocacy for financial deregulation and the period of historically low interest rates during his tenure helped create the conditions for the subprime mortgage collapse. While testifying before Congress in October 2008, Greenspan acknowledged that his faith in the self-correcting power of free markets had been misplaced. “I have found a flaw,” he said at the time. “I don’t know how significant or permanent it is. But I have been very distressed by that fact.” When asked by Representative Henry Waxman if his “ideology was not right, it was not working,” Greenspan replied: “You know, that’s precisely the reason I was shocked, because I have been going for 40 years or more with very considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well.”

Despite the debates over his legacy, Greenspan’s influence on modern economic thinking remained profound to the end. “He navigated the Federal Reserve through monumental challenges and changes, including that always-tricky pivot from defense to offense,” economist Mohamed El-Erian told The Wall Street Journalon Monday. “With that, he helped the U.S. economy benefit from a consequentially positive productivity shock. The world of economics and public policy has lost a towering figure whose influence is still being felt today.”

Among his honors, Greenspan received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George W. Bush in 2005. He was also awarded the Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2002, an honorary knighthood from Queen Elizabeth later that same year, and the Commander of the Legion of Honor from France in 2000.

In personal life, Greenspan briefly married abstract artist Joan Mitchell in October 1952, but the marriage was declared legally invalid ten months later. (The couple were introduced by Russian-American writer Ayn Rand.) Greenspan later married journalist Andrea Mitchell in April 1997, in a ceremony performed by Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Greenspan is survived by his wife of 29 years.

“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 said. “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. He will be remembered for his brilliance and his kindness. Being his life partner was the joy of my life.”

You Might Also Like