Bernanke: Ivy League intellect, Fed experience

WASHINGTON - With his years of work teaching and studying monetary economics, service as a Federal Reserve governor and brief tour of duty in the Bush White House, Ben Bernanke has spent  nearly his entire career preparing for this day.

A straight-talking Ivy League economist with a reputation for eschewing political ideology, Bernanke, 51, commands wide respect in the economics community and has long been the insiders’ choice to lead the U.S. central bank.

Five years ago, Bernanke posed the prescient question in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, “What Happens When Greenspan is Gone?”

On Monday, President Bush answered, nominating Bernanke to replace Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan after an 18-year term that has made him an icon from the halls of the Congress to Main Street, U.S.A.

“He’s got strong research credentials on both analytical work and economic history and clearly his service at the Fed has familiarized him with a lot of the nuts and bolts of the job,” said Michael Prell, former director of research at the Fed Board. “He’s shown himself to be a student of the practical tasks of current analysis and forecasting.”

Born in Georgia and raised in Dillon, S.C., Bernanke was an academic star. In sixth grade, he won the state spelling bee but missed higher acclaim when he faltered on the word “edelweiss,” a flower. He got a score of 1,590 on his SAT out of a possible 1,600, taught himself calculus in high school and then focused on economic numbers at Harvard.

After graduating summa cum laude from the Ivy League university in 1975, Bernanke continued his studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he received his doctorate four years late. His focus during his years in Boston were the underpinnings of the Great Depression and the losing ways of the city’s beloved baseball team, the Red Sox.

The former was his field of study; the latter an obsession he eventually shed. A Washingtonian of late, Bernanke recently switched his allegiance to the capital’s baseball team, the Nationals.

Sworn in as chairman of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers in June, Bernanke had served nearly three years on the Fed's board of governors, which helps set interest-rate policy.

He has written numerous books and articles, some focusing on his idea of targeting inflation, in other words coming up with a specific level — around 2 percent — over a specific time period — about two years.

It was a theory he put forth in his editorial looking beyond Greenspan.

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