The Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences was awarded to former Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke and two others.
Key Details
- Former Fed chair Ben Bernanke was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work during the 2008 recession.
- The Nobel committee also awarded the prize to University of Chicago economist Douglas Diamond and Washington University economist Philip Dybvig.
- It was said that their work during the 2008 recession was invaluable and helped lead America out of a depression that could have matched the historic one in the 1930s.
Why it’s news
The 2008 recession was so bad that it was labeled as the “Great Recession” and was considered the worst downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Bernanke spent most of his career studying the Great Depression and banking, so when the Great Recession hit he was determined to do everything he could to save the economy and prevent it from collapsing.
“From 2006 to 2014, I was involved in a global financial crisis where the problems in the financial sector caused tremendous problems in the real economy, both here and around the world,” Bernanke said at an event at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. “Thinking about these issues made me very determined to do everything I could along with my colleagues to try to prevent the financial system from melting down because I strongly believed that if that happened that it would bring down the rest of the economy.”
Historians now credit him for averting an economic calamity by quickly devising aggressive new monetary policies during and after a financial crisis that started in 2007 and spanned nearly two years, according to Wall Street Journal writer Paul Hannon.
Bernanke said he was surprised and “incredibly honored” to receive the Nobel Prize for his extensive research on banks and financial crises.
NOTABLE QUOTE
Comments Ray Dalio on Facebook… “Ben Bernanke receiving the #NoblePrize for Economics (along with Douglas Dimond and Philip Dybvig) is a delight for me to see because I admire and like the man so much because he is one of a very rare breed that brings together knowledge that can only be gained via academic research with the knowledge that comes from being a practitioner. He has acquired this knowledge over many years in his unwavering pursuit of learning what’s really true and using that know ledge to do the right things to improve peoples’ lives. I personally know Ben Bernanke to be a very capable and very good man who pursues the best paths possible using the powers of reason and courage, even when that is not in his interest and is painful for him. For those reasons he is a hero to me. That doesn’t mean that we don’t disagree on some things, because we do (though not many); however even our disagreements reflect our shared loving of thoughtful disagreement in pursuit of the best answers. Congratulations, Ben!”
