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Bernanke Doesn’t Let a Crisis Go to Waste

Oct 12-2022   



Ben S. Bernanke, former US Fed Chairman, and two other American economists have just been awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics due to their outstanding research in banking and financial crisis. His latest book, Essays on the Great Depression, has been translated into Chinese and hit bookstores. Prof. Huang Yiping, Associate Dean of the NSD, wrote a foreword, entitled ‘Never Let a Crisis Go to Waste’, for the book. He also heads PKU Institute of Digital Finance and chairs the academic committee of China Finance 40.

 

Inspired by the famous saying of Winston Churchill, Prof. Huang believed in the studious analysis of a crisis to avert future ones and achieve progress. To him, Bernanke epitomizes such a philosophy and puts it to practice in his role as Economics Professor at Princeton University and subsequently as Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Throughout his academic career, Bernanke was absorbed in the research of the Great Depression and demonstrated with clarity and rigor the major causes of its origins and progression. He then applied his findings and learning to policy practice, completing the feedback loop between research and practice.

 

Bernanke’s two key findings, seemingly bland yet highly significant, are summed up by Prof. Huang as: monetary factors were the major cause of the Great Depression, and the difficulty to adjust nominal wages hampered economic recovery. The previous belief that currency was neutral was turned on its head, and pumping up monetary supply during a crisis started to gain popularity.

 

Prof. Huang believed Bernanke has worked on an area that centers on consequential issues, allows for intriguing research, and produces influential conclusions. His book is highly relevant today as the world is lumbering through a pandemic-induced crisis after emerging from a global one in 2012. Meanwhile, the global currency system is beset by various challenges related to inflation and financial risks. More revolutionary research and policy practice should arise from the damages wreaked by crises, he said.

 

Bernanke Doesn’t Let a Crisis Go to Waste

Oct 12-2022   



Ben S. Bernanke, former US Fed Chairman, and two other American economists have just been awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics due to their outstanding research in banking and financial crisis. His latest book, Essays on the Great Depression, has been translated into Chinese and hit bookstores. Prof. Huang Yiping, Associate Dean of the NSD, wrote a foreword, entitled ‘Never Let a Crisis Go to Waste’, for the book. He also heads PKU Institute of Digital Finance and chairs the academic committee of China Finance 40.

 

Inspired by the famous saying of Winston Churchill, Prof. Huang believed in the studious analysis of a crisis to avert future ones and achieve progress. To him, Bernanke epitomizes such a philosophy and puts it to practice in his role as Economics Professor at Princeton University and subsequently as Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Throughout his academic career, Bernanke was absorbed in the research of the Great Depression and demonstrated with clarity and rigor the major causes of its origins and progression. He then applied his findings and learning to policy practice, completing the feedback loop between research and practice.

 

Bernanke’s two key findings, seemingly bland yet highly significant, are summed up by Prof. Huang as: monetary factors were the major cause of the Great Depression, and the difficulty to adjust nominal wages hampered economic recovery. The previous belief that currency was neutral was turned on its head, and pumping up monetary supply during a crisis started to gain popularity.

 

Prof. Huang believed Bernanke has worked on an area that centers on consequential issues, allows for intriguing research, and produces influential conclusions. His book is highly relevant today as the world is lumbering through a pandemic-induced crisis after emerging from a global one in 2012. Meanwhile, the global currency system is beset by various challenges related to inflation and financial risks. More revolutionary research and policy practice should arise from the damages wreaked by crises, he said.