Even as a Nobel Laureate, Ben Bernanke still divides economists

When former Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke won the 2022 Nobel Prize in Economics, reactions were swift and divided.

Bernanke shares the award with two other US-based colleagues for research into banking and financial crises. Bernanke put his research into practice in the 2008 global financial crisis. Under his tenure, the Fed’s balance sheet soared to more than $4 trillion from less than $1 trillion as the central bank sought to foster growth in the US economy.

That makes Bernanke a particularly polarising figure in the world of economics. There are those who praise him for rescuing the US economy, and those who think the US is still trying to recover from his actions — and few in between.

Some reactions were glowing, while others were scathing. Here’s a selection.

Gita Gopinath, who is first deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund, called the award a “no-brainer.”

Jason Furman, Harvard’s Aetna Professor of the Practice of Economic Policy who was a top economic adviser to former President Barack Obama also lauded the move.

Jean Boivin, who heads BlackRock’s Investment Institute and previously served as deputy governor of the Bank of Canada, shared his memories of Bernanke.

Others were less enthusiastic.

Albert Edwards, a strategist at Societe Generale, fired off several tweets about what he saw as the Fed’s “incompetence” under Bernanke.

Sridhar Vembu, CEO of Zoho Corp., called Bernanke’s policies “misguided.”

Nathan Tankus, who writes about monetary policy in his newsletter Notes on the Crises, compared Bernanke to former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who won the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating a cease-fire in Vietnam.