During the period beginning roughly in the mid-1980s until the Global Financial Crisis (2007-2008), the U.S. economy experienced a time of relative economic calm, with low inflation and consistent GDP growth. Compared with the turbulent economic era which had preceded it in the 1970s and the early 1980s, the lack of extreme fluctuations in the business cycle led some commentators to suggest that macroeconomic issues such as high inflation, long-term unemployment and financial crises were a thing of the past. Indeed, the President of the American Economic Association, Professor Robert Lucas, famously proclaimed in 2003 that "central problem of depression prevention has been solved, for all practical purposes". Ben Bernanke, the future chairman of the Federal Reserve during the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and 2022 Nobel Prize in Economics recipient, coined the term 'the Great Moderation' to describe this era of newfound economic confidence. The era came to an abrupt end with the outbreak of the GFC in the Summer of 2007, as the U.S. financial system began to crash due to a downturn in the real estate market.

Causes of the Great Moderation, and its downfall

A number of factors have been cited as contributing to the Great Moderation including central bank monetary policies, the shift from manufacturing to services in the economy, improvements in information technology and management practices, as well as reduced energy prices. The period coincided with the term of Fed chairman Alan Greenspan (1987-2006), famous for the 'Greenspan put', a policy which meant that the Fed would proactively address downturns in the stock market using its monetary policy tools. These economic factors came to prominence at the same time as the end of the Cold War (1947-1991), with the U.S. attaining a new level of hegemony in global politics, as its main geopolitical rival, the Soviet Union, no longer existed. During the Great Moderation, the U.S. experienced a recession twice, between July 1990 and March 1991, and again from March 2001 tom November 2001, however, these relatively short recessions did not knock the U.S. off its growth path. The build up of household and corporate debt over the early 2000s eventually led to the Global Financial Crisis, as the bursting of the U.S. housing bubble in 2007 reverberated across the financial system, with a subsequent credit freeze and mass defaults.

International journal of central banking Impact Factor 2024-2025 - ResearchHelpDesk - International journal of central banking - In July 2004, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the European Central Bank, and each of the Group of Ten* (G-10) central banks announced their plans to support the development of a new publication focused on central bank theory and practice. Other central banks were invited to participate in this joint project, and there are now 55 sponsoring institutions. From its initiation, the sponsors were committed to ensuring that the International Journal of Central Banking (IJCB) offer peer-reviewed articles of high analytical quality for a professional audience. The primary objectives of the IJCB are to widely disseminate the best policy-relevant and applied research on central banking and to promote communication among researchers both inside and outside of central banks. Roger W. Ferguson, Jr., then Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, first proposed the idea of such a journal and discussed the concept with several BIS colleagues and with Ben S. Bernanke, then Chair of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, who agreed to serve as the initial managing editor. Charles Bean, then Chief Economist of the Bank of England, strongly supported the project, and the journal's governing body, comprising representatives from the sponsoring institutions, was established. The journal's managing editor, co-editors and associate editors coordinate solicitation and review of articles across a range of disciplines reflecting the missions of central banks around the world. While featuring policy-relevant articles on any aspect of the theory and practice of central banking, the publication has a special emphasis on research bearing on monetary and financial stability. Managing editors of the journal and their affiliations during their terms as managing editor: Ben S. Bernanke 2000 - 2005, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System John B. Taylor 2005 - 2007, Stanford University Frank Smets 2008 - 2010, European Central Bank John C. Williams 2011 - 2016, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Loretta J. Mester 2016 - 2019, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland Luc Laeven 2020 - present, European Central Bank

International journal of central banking FAQ - ResearchHelpDesk - International journal of central banking - In July 2004, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the European Central Bank, and each of the Group of Ten* (G-10) central banks announced their plans to support the development of a new publication focused on central bank theory and practice. Other central banks were invited to participate in this joint project, and there are now 55 sponsoring institutions. From its initiation, the sponsors were committed to ensuring that the International Journal of Central Banking (IJCB) offer peer-reviewed articles of high analytical quality for a professional audience. The primary objectives of the IJCB are to widely disseminate the best policy-relevant and applied research on central banking and to promote communication among researchers both inside and outside of central banks. Roger W. Ferguson, Jr., then Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, first proposed the idea of such a journal and discussed the concept with several BIS colleagues and with Ben S. Bernanke, then Chair of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, who agreed to serve as the initial managing editor. Charles Bean, then Chief Economist of the Bank of England, strongly supported the project, and the journal's governing body, comprising representatives from the sponsoring institutions, was established. The journal's managing editor, co-editors and associate editors coordinate solicitation and review of articles across a range of disciplines reflecting the missions of central banks around the world. While featuring policy-relevant articles on any aspect of the theory and practice of central banking, the publication has a special emphasis on research bearing on monetary and financial stability. Managing editors of the journal and their affiliations during their terms as managing editor: Ben S. Bernanke 2000 - 2005, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System John B. Taylor 2005 - 2007, Stanford University Frank Smets 2008 - 2010, European Central Bank John C. Williams 2011 - 2016, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Loretta J. Mester 2016 - 2019, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland Luc Laeven 2020 - present, European Central Bank

The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel was established in 1968 with an endowment from the Swedish central bank, the Riksbank. The award is administered by the Nobel Foundation, although it is not one of the Nobel Prizes, which were established in the will of Alfred Nobel. The award is chosen using the same method as the original Nobel Prizes and is awarded at the same ceremony as the prizes in Physics, Chemistry, Medicine and Literature every year in Stockholm, while The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded at a different ceremony in Oslo, Norway. Well known public figures who have received the award in the past include Milton Friedman of the University of Chicago in 1976 and Paul Krugman of Princeton University in 2008. The 2022 Prize The winners of the prize in 2022 were Ben Bernanke, Douglas Diamond and Philip Dybvig for "research on banks and financial crises". Ben Bernanke is most well known as the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, where he oversaw the response to the Global Financial Crisis, as well as for his academic work on the causes of the 1929 Wall Street Crash and The Great Depression, which he conducted largely at Princeton. Diamond and Dybvig are the authors of a formal theoretical model, the Diamond-Dybvig model, which pioneered the modelling of bank runs and financial panics. While the decision to award the prize to Bernanke, Diamond and Dybvig has been praised for recognizing their contributions to the theoretical and historical study of banking and its relation to financial panics, others have criticized the decision as their work is seen as ignoring the development of non-bank financial intermediaries, as well as criticizing Bernanke for his policy response to the financial crisis. Diamond is the University of Chicago's fourteenth recipient of the award, while Bernanke is Princeton's ninth and Dybvig is the Wahington University of St. Louis' second. The 2023 Prize The winner of the 2023 prize was Claudia Goldin of Harvard University for "having advanced our understanding of women's labor market outcomes". Goldin is only the third woman to receieve the Sveriges Riksbank prize - Elinor Ostrom being awarded in 2009 and Esther Duflo in 2019 - and the first woman to receive the prize as a sole winner. Goldin is an economic historian and a labor economist by training, whose work has focused on the historical development of women's participation in the labor market and the effects, both on the economy and on wider society, that this has had. Goldin's career-long research into these topics was summarised in her 2019 book Career and Family: Women's Century-Long Jouney toward Equity, which pointed to the unequal pressures which women and men haved faced when building careers over the past century, as women have had to balance their professional ambitions with their traditional role in the household. The 2024 Prize The winners of the 2024 prize were Daron Acemoglu, Simon Roberts Johnson, and James A. Robinson from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Chicago, recognized for their work on "how institutions are formed and affect prosperity." Their research focuses on understanding the differences in how economic growth is shaped by the quality of institutions, demonstrating that inclusive institutions foster wealth creation by generating a virtuous circle of economic growth. Acemoglu and Roberts Johnson are the 11th recipients of the prize, placing MIT only four prizes behind the University of Chicago.