Ben Bernanke, interviewed in this
issue, is the Howard Harrison and
Gabrielle Snyder Beck Professor of
Economics and Public Affairs at
Princeton University, and, since 1996,
Chair of the Department of Economics.
He is currently Director of the
Monetary Economics Program at the
National Bureau of Economic
Research, where he has also acted as
co-editor of the NBER Macroeconomics
Annual. Professor
Bernanke is also one of the six
economists who form the NBER
Business Cycle Dating Committee, a
group that determines the dates of
recessions in the US. Professor
Bernanke is a leading macroeconomist
who has contributed extensively to
the journal literature on business
cycles, monetary policy, the role of
financial markets in economic
fluctuations, inflation targeting and
the economics of the Great Depression.
His recent books include Inflation
Targeting: Lessons from the International
Experience (co-authored with T. Laubach,
F. Mishkin and A. Posen, Princeton
University Press, 1999); Essays on the
Great Depression (Princeton University
Press, 2000); Principles of Economics
(co-authored with R. Frank, McGraw-
Hill, 2000), and Macroeconomics
(co-authored with A. Abel, Addison-
Wesley, 4th edition, 2001).