The Fed Chairman is the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, or Fed, the US central bank. As such, the Fed Chairman is the one highly public figure of the Fed. The business press report and try to interpret every spoken word of the Fed Chairman in the belief that such comments are the best available hint as to the direction of monetary policy. In fact, the Fed Chairman is likely to be reserved, but not secretive, in any public commentary because the credibility of the Fed Chairman is important to the Fed’s effectiveness given the importance of expectations to the economy. The Fed Chairman is a political appointee, generally drawn from the ranks of the other appointed members of the Board of Governors. The Fed Chairman serves a four-year renewable term. Alan Greenspan and Paul Volker are two well-known examples of the Fed Chairman. |
