Thoughts on the Maestro.

• Position: The Greenspan Era: Lessons for the Future symposium excerpt - Excerpt

ALAN GREENSPAN was sworn in as Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System almost exactly 18 years ago. At the time, the Reagan administration was being rocked by the Iran-contra scandal. The Berlin Wall was standing tall while, in the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev had just presented proposals for perestroika. The stock market had not crashed since 1929 and, probably by coincidence, Prozac had just been released on the market. The New York Mets, having won the 1986 World Series, were the reigning champions of major league baseball. A lot can change in 18 years.

Turning to the narrower world of monetary policy, central banks in 1987 still doted on money growth rates and spoke in tongues--when indeed they spoke at all, which was not often....

... [W]ithin the domain of monetary policy, Greenspan has been central to just about everything that has transpired in the practical world since 1987 and to some of the major developments in the academic world as well .... [T]he Greenspan era ... started in earnest with a frightening one-day crash of the stock market in October 1987, and included wars in Iraq in both 1990 and 2003, a rolling worldwide financial crisis in 1997-1998, the biggest financial bubble in history, an amazing turnaround in productivity growth after 1995, and a deflation scare in 2003. It is now culminating with Greenspan's fourth attempt at a soft landing....

... While there are some negatives in the record, when the score is toted up, we think he has a legitimate claim to being the greatest central banker who ever lived. His performance as chairman of the Fed has been impressive, encompassing, and overwhelmingly beneficial--to the nation, to the institution, and to the practice of monetary policy.

--ALAN S. BLINDER and RICARDO REIS

Princeton University

IN ITS 92-year history, the Federal Reserve has had 12 chairmen, 7 in the modern era. In my judgment Alan

Greenspan stands in the front rank. ... Per capita consumption in constant dollars increased 44 percent during the first 17 years of his chairmanship, and 27 million additional workers found employment.

--ALLAN H. MELTZER

Carnegie Mellon University

UNDER ALAN GREENSPAN'S stewardship, the U.S. has achieved remarkably low levels of inflation and inflation volatility, despite the lack of real reference points. We do not need to know the GDP gap, the unemployment gap, or the neutral real interest rate, to keep the price level near constancy.

--ROBERT E. HALL

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