{"id":2278,"date":"2026-06-26T10:17:38","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T10:17:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=2278"},"modified":"2026-06-26T10:17:38","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T10:17:38","slug":"alan-greenspan-said-3-years-with-gerald-ford-beat-18-at-the-fed-his-death-at-100-raises-the-question-was-he-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=2278","title":{"rendered":"Alan Greenspan said 3 years with Gerald Ford beat 18 at the Fed. His death at 100 raises the question: was he right?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

As professors of economics, we haven\u2019t just covered Greenspan\u2019s legacy for our students. We also knew him personally, in different capacities: One of us interviewed him in 2016 for a book on public service, and the other was present as a young professor when Greenspan defended his dissertation at New York University in 1977.<\/p>

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To us, one of the most notable aspects of his career was his commitment to public service, cemented while he served as chair of the Council of Economic Advisers from 1974-77, during the Ford administration.<\/p>

<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n
\"a<\/figure>\n
Greenspan is seen here in 1974, the year he started his term with the Council of Economic Advisers. AP Photo\/Charles Kelly<\/figcaption>\n

The early years<\/h2>\n

The younger Greenspan cut a different figure.<\/p>\n

He studied clarinet at the Juilliard School and worked as a professional musician while attending New York University in the late 1940s. He was briefly married to Joan Mitchell, an art historian who introduced him to the libertarian writer Ayn Rand.<\/p>\n

Through the 1950s Greenspan was part of Rand\u2019s inner circle \u2013 which emphasized radical individualism, self-interest and laissez-faire capitalism \u2013 while he developed the building blocks for an economics career.<\/p>\n

Greenspan later came under criticism for his early association with Rand. But we believe that his approach to economics was essentially practical and fact-based, not ideological.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou begin with a conceptual framework of cause and effect,\u201d is how he put it in the book interview. \u201cAnd then you observe reality, and try to anticipate what is going to happen in the future, even though you can never see beyond a certain horizon.<\/p>\n

\u201cData are a measure of what is going on in reality,\u201d he continued. \u201cIf you want to endeavor to try to lower the probabilities of forecasting mistakes in the future, the more information you have about the structure of the system, the better off you will be.\u201d<\/p>\n

After completing his undergraduate degree at NYU, Greenspan moved on to graduate study at Columbia University, one of the preeminent economics departments in the country at the time. But he left academia in 1954 to join a consulting firm while still managing to publish academic work in economics.<\/p>\n

One example was a piece that foretold economist James Tobin\u2019s \u201cQ theory of investment,\u201d a tool to estimate whether a business or market is overvalued or undervalued. That insight was prominently noted in Tobin\u2019s Nobel Prize 1981 citation.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, as he built his consulting firm, Greenspan took great pride in its data-based work.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy reputation was as an economic forecaster of the United States,\u201d he recounted in the book interview. \u201cThrough my company, I became an expert in about 15 different industries. I brought to the table types of analysis which no one else had.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

\"tktktktkkt\"<\/figure>\n
From left, President Gerald R. Ford, Alan Greenspan\u2019s mother, Rose Goldsmith, Alan Greenspan, writer Ayn Rand and Rand\u2019s husband, Charles Francis \u2018Frank\u2019 O\u2019Connor, after Greenspan\u2019s swearing in as CEA chairman. David Hume Kennerly\/The Gerald R. Ford Library\/Getty Images<\/figcaption>\n

A professional turning point<\/h2>\n

It wasn\u2019t until 1974 that Greenspan first considered public service.<\/p>\n

Arthur Burns, a close adviser to President Richard Nixon who also served as Fed chairman from 1970-78, had mentored Greenspan and prevailed upon him to join the Nixon administration. While he shared the Republican conservatism of the administration, Greenspan had qualms about some of Nixon\u2019s policies, such as the 1971 price and wage controls. He told Nixon\u2019s chief of staff, Al Haig, that he would quit if Nixon went too far.<\/p>\n

Greenspan never had to make that call \u2013 Nixon resigned before he took up the post \u2013 and he went on to lead the Council of Economic Advisers under Ford, advising the president on economic policy.<\/p>

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\u201cIt turned out that working for Ford was more interesting than my eighteen-and-a-half years at the Federal Reserve,\u201d he explained in the book interview.<\/p>\n

That job turned Greenspan into a dedicated public servant. \u201cI saw Ford three or four times a week for one-on-one meetings,\u201d Greenspan recalled. \u201cI would just do what I did for my clients before I got into the cauldron of politics. And he responded like a regular businessman. We had a very good rapport.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ford was an \u201cextraordinary man\u201d who \u201calways acted as though we were equals, which was quite remarkable,\u201d Greenspan added. \u201cI\u2019ve never run into anything like it before or since.\u201d<\/p>\n

Era of free markets<\/h2>\n

Greenspan was called back to public service in 1987 as Fed chair, ultimately serving five consecutive terms under both Democratic and Republican presidents \u2013 Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. He cut a commanding presence in policy circles and congressional appearances, carefully using measured language to explain \u2013 or, just as often, to avoid explaining \u2013 what he chose to share with the public.<\/p>\n

His long tenure as chair coincided with increasing U.S. prosperity, when free markets, free trade and deregulation seemed to serve the global economy well. It was also a period of enormous political change with the demise of the Soviet Union and the opening up of China. And central banks rose in prominence and power, as monetary policy replaced fiscal policy as the primary tool of macroeconomics.<\/p>\n

Against this backdrop, Greenspan developed a more public role than most central bankers, in part because the new focus on monetary policy demanded it. At the time, he seemed to relish the attention, but later he looked at it differently.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did what I had to do, and I made decisions when I had to make them. I could argue with senators when I had to go up to Capitol Hill, and I held my own very well because I knew a lot more than anybody up there,\u201d he said in his 2016 interview. \u201cBut it wasn\u2019t an enjoyable function since none of the people were analytical or conceptual. They had opinions without any reasoning.\u201d<\/p>\n

A reckoning after the crisis<\/h2>\n

Greenspan\u2019s obsession with data notwithstanding, it\u2019s sometimes difficult to uncover an analytical framework underlying his approach to macroeconomics \u2013 aside from his preference for a very light regulatory hand, particularly in financial markets. But to his credit, he acknowledged the inadequacies of the frameworks that led to the financial crisis in 2008. While the crash happened after his watch, many scholars point to monetary policy under his Fed in the preceding years as a key factor.<\/p>\n

\u201cEach of us has a model in our heads; some of them work, and some of them don\u2019t,\u201d he conceded in the 2016 interview. \u201cWhat you need to measure is continuously evolving. I know that because the Federal Reserve had an extraordinarily good and very sophisticated model, but it did not capture what was wrong that led to the crisis in 2008.\u201d<\/p>\n

Greenspan was often accused of excessive self-confidence. But his own description of his role \u2013 an introvert and the \u201cside man\u201d in the dance band \u2013 might be more accurate. The man who began his career reading scores written by other people in the band ended up with the whole world trying to read him.<\/p>\n

Simon Bowmaker, Distinguished Clinical Professor of Economics, New York University and Paul Wachtel, Emeritus Professor of Economics, New York University<\/em><\/p>\n

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.<\/em><\/p>

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\n

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