Ben Bernanke PhD ’79 is 29th MIT affiliate to be awarded a share of Nobel Memorial Prize in economics
Ben Bernanke PhD ’79, an economist and former chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve, was awarded a share of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel for 2022 Oct. 10.
Bernanke won the award along with Douglas W. Diamond and Philip H. Dybvig, economics professors at the University of Chicago and Washington University at Saint. Louis, respectively.
According to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Bernanke, Diamond, and Dybvig were awarded the prize “for research on banks and financial crises.” Bernanke was particularly recognized for his paper “Nonmonetary Effects of the Financial Crisis in the Propagation of the Great Depression” (1983), published in the American Economic Review.
Bernanke earned his undergraduate degree from Harvard University before receiving his graduate degree in economics at MIT, where he completed a dissertation on long-term commitments, dynamic optimization, and the business cycle. Bernanke then served as faculty at Stanford University and Princeton University before becoming a member of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board in 2002. Bernanke was the 14th chair of the Federal Reserve Board from 2006 to 2014.
Bernanke was distinguished senior fellow at the Golub Center for Finance and Policy at the Sloan School of Management in the 2020–21 academic year.
The Nobel Memorial Prize for economic sciences has been awarded to 29 MIT affiliates — 16 faculty and 13 alumni — thus far. Most recently the prize was won by Professor Joshua Angrist in 2021 and Professors Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo PhD ’99 in 2019.