Ben Bernanke Biography Essay

Ben Bernanke was born in Augusta Georgia on December 13, 1953. Although born in Georgia Ben Bernanke was raised in Dillon, South Carolina. Ben has two siblings who have gone on to have careers of their own. His sister Sharon is an administrator at Berklee School of Music in Boston and his brother Seth works as a lawyer in North Carolina. His father worked as a pharmacist and his mother school teacher in the town of Dillon while raising Ben and his siblings. As a child Ben attended the local synagogue with his family. The Bernanke family was one of the only few Jewish families in Dillon South Carolina at the time. Ben attended East Elementary and went on to J.V Martin Junior High. Ben had many outside activities going on while in school.
He was able to teach himself outside of the class room and played the saxophone for his schools marching band. For high school Ben went to Dillon High where he graduated as Valedictorian in 1971. Ben Bernanke scored a 1590 on the SAT, he had the highest score in South Carolina that year.
Ben Bernanke attended Harvard University where he acquired his bachelor’s degree in economics by the year 1975.
Ben needed funds so he worked while still in college as being a waiter at South of the Border during the summers. Ben graduated from Harvard University as a Suma Cum Laude. He went on to get his Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1979. Shortly after Ben received his Ph.D. he began working as a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. In 1985 he changed schools to teach at New York University. Ben’s career eventually leads him to Princeton where he began working and became chairman of their economics department. Ben was a very accomplished man, during his teaching days he wrote four textbooks. The textbooks Ben wrote where about microeconomics and macroeconomics.
Ben Bernanke has received several fellowships and awards, including the distinguished Guggenheim Fellowship, the Econometric Society Fellowship and the Sloan Fellowship. Ben Bernanke was also a member of the National Bureau of Economic Research's Business Cycle Dating Committee. He has also worked for two terms as a member of New Jersey's Montgomery Township Board of Education. Ben Bernanke supports education strongly .Bernanke was also a fellow of the Econometric Society and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Though his life he has written several articles about topics that interest him such as the Great Depression of the
1920’s. President Bush had to appoint the new Chairman of the Federal Reserve to replace the retiring Alan Greenspan. In June of 2005 President Bush appointed Ben Bernanke as the new Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Bernanke wanted to separate himself from Greenspan from the beginning. Bernanke’s views are influenced by monetary policy more so than fiscal policy. Bernanke stated “politicians were hired to determine taxation and deficits” when defending his stance on policy.