Ben Bernanke
Why can’t your neighbour burn down his house?
Intro
Dr Ben Bernanke currently works as a Distinguished Fellow-in-residence with the Economic Studies Program at the Brookings Institution. However, he is best known for his role as Chairman of the Board of the Federal Reserve System (also known as the Fed) from 2006-2010, a period marked by the 2008 Financial Crisis. Many experts and influential leaders, including Barack Obama, credit Bernanke for “preventing another Great Depression”.
Bernanke is an expert in macroeconomics, specifically monetary policy. His ideas, which influenced many of the decisions taken by the Fed following the collapse in 2008, can be summarised by the ‘Bernanke Doctrine’ a speech he gave upon his initial appointment as a Governor of the Fed in 2004. He is a scholar of the Great Depression, specifically its underlying causes and the lessons that could be learned from it.
A former Princeton Professor, Dr. Bernanke has published several scholarly articles tackling a wide range of economic issues. He is the author of several books, including ‘The Courage to Act: A Memoir of a Crisis and its Aftermath’, which documents his experience as Chairman of the Federal Reserve during and after the 2008 financial crisis.
If you want to understand geology, study earthquakes. If you want to understand the economy, study the Depression1
About the Authors
Dan Pilat
Dan is a Co-Founder and Managing Director at The Decision Lab. He is a bestselling author of Intention - a book he wrote with Wiley on the mindful application of behavioral science in organizations. Dan has a background in organizational decision making, with a BComm in Decision & Information Systems from McGill University. He has worked on enterprise-level behavioral architecture at TD Securities and BMO Capital Markets, where he advised management on the implementation of systems processing billions of dollars per week. Driven by an appetite for the latest in technology, Dan created a course on business intelligence and lectured at McGill University, and has applied behavioral science to topics such as augmented and virtual reality.
Dr. Sekoul Krastev
Sekoul is a Co-Founder and Managing Director at The Decision Lab. He is a bestselling author of Intention - a book he wrote with Wiley on the mindful application of behavioral science in organizations. A decision scientist with a PhD in Decision Neuroscience from McGill University, Sekoul's work has been featured in peer-reviewed journals and has been presented at conferences around the world. Sekoul previously advised management on innovation and engagement strategy at The Boston Consulting Group as well as on online media strategy at Google. He has a deep interest in the applications of behavioral science to new technology and has published on these topics in places such as the Huffington Post and Strategy & Business.
