Ben Bernanke

Great Depression scholar, financial accelerator (academic + policy)

Distinguished Fellow at the Brookings Institution and former Chairman of the Federal Reserve (2006–2014). Won the 2022 Nobel Prize in Economics for research on banks and financial crises. Best known for theorising how credit-market disruptions amplify downturns — the 'financial accelerator' — and for applying that framework during the 2008 global financial crisis.