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From 2000 to 2003, when Ben Bernanke was a professor and then a Fed Governor, he wrote extensively about monetary policy at the zero bound on interest rates. He advocated aggressive stimulus policies, such as a money-financed tax cut and an inflation target of 3%-4%. Yet, after U.S. interest rates hit zero in 2008, the Fed under Chairman Bernanke took more cautious actions. This paper asks when and why Bernanke changed his mind about zero-bound policy. The answer, at one level, is that he was influenced by analysis from the Fed staff that was presented at the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting of June 2003. This answer raises another question: why did the staff's views influence Bernanke so strongly? I seek answers to this question in the social psychology literature on group decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deflation presents special challenges to central banking, as traditional monetary policy tools are highly inefficient in dealing with deflationary pressures. In this case, the Federal Reserve must use alternative monetary policy tools that are specially designed to artificially boost asset prices through “printing press” or currency manipulation. Unfortunately, these alternative monetary policy tools create unintended political, geopolitical, and social consequences that overreach into the direct responsibilities of other branches of government. Thus, the government must be able to influence Federal Open Market Committee decisions that potentially affect (or contradict) U.S. foreign policy, U.S. trade policy, U.S. dollar policy, and deliberate domestic/global wealth distribution policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this interview, Dr. Bernanke recounts the concerns of his early days as chairman of the Federal Reserve in 2006 and the onset of the 2007-09 financial crisis. He then turns to the collapse of Lehman Brothers and AIG and its fallout. He emphasizes how important it is for the public to understand the Federal Reserve and what it does and the consequent importance of clear communication. Turning to postcrisis policies, he discusses unwinding quantitative easing, the global low-interest rate environment, and the importance of the Federal Reserve in maintaining financial stability. He expresses his confidence that recent measures make the U.S. economy less vulnerable to financial shocks than before the crisis. He also makes comments on income inequality and the housing market and discusses the statistics that he monitors regularly on the U.S. and global economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]