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Economics is a very difficult subject. I've compared it to trying to learn how to repair a car when the engine is running.

Ben Bernanke

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More quotes by Ben Bernanke

The sources of deflation are not a mystery. Deflation is in almost all cases a side effect of a collapse of aggregate demand.. a drop in spending so severe that producers must cut prices on an ongoing basis in order to find buyers.

Speaking as somebody who has been happily married for 35 years, I can't imagine any choice more consequential for a lifelong journey than the choice of a traveling companion.

The economic repercussions of a stock market crash depend less on the severity of the crash itself than on the response of economic policymakers, particularly central bankers.

The financial crisis appears to be mostly behind us, and the economy seems to have stabilized and is expanding again.

The American people are among the most productive in the world. We have the best technologies. We have - great universities. We have entrepreneurs.

One might as well try to perform brain surgery with a sledgehammer.

I don't see much evidence of an equity bubble.

Indeed, in general, healthy investment returns cannot be sustained in a weak economy, and of course it is difficult to save for retirement or other goals without the income from a job.

To avoid large and unsustainable budget deficits, the nation will ultimately have to choose among higher taxes, modifications to entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare, less spending on everything else from education to defense, or some combination of the above.

The more important reason is that the research itself provides an important long-run perspective on the issues that we face on a day-to-day basis.

The benefit of appointing a hawkish central banker is the increased inflation-fighting credibility that such an appointment brings.

In the future, my communications with the public and with the markets will be entirely through regular and formal channels.

We do not expect significant spillovers from the subprime market to the rest of the economy or to the financial system.

If you are asking me if I would advocate that the Chinese go to greater flexibility in their exchange rate, I certainly would.

It's true that the Federal Reserve faces a lot of political pressure and is unpopular in many circles.

The economist John Maynard Keynes said that in the long run, we are all dead. If he were around today he might say that, in the long run, we are all on Social Security and Medicare.

The risk exists that, with aggregate demand exhibiting considerable momentum, output could overshoot its sustainable path, leading ultimately in the absence of countervailing monetary policy action to further upward pressure on inflation.