Alan Greenspan

Alan Greenspan, the 13th chairman of the Federal Reserve, died on June 22, 2026, at age 100. He led the Fed for nearly 19 years under four US presidents, shaping the global economy through the dot-com boom and the prelude to the 2008 financial crisis.

By Alexandre Le Hégarat · datastats · Updated June 22, 2026

Alan Greenspan was the 13th chairman of the United States Federal Reserve and one of the most consequential economic figures of the late 20th century. He died on June 22, 2026, at the age of 100, from complications of Parkinson’s disease. His wife, NBC News journalist Andrea Mitchell, announced his passing.

Born on March 6, 1926, in Washington Heights, New York City, Greenspan came of age during the Great Depression. He briefly pursued a career in music, studying clarinet at the Juilliard School in 1943–44 and playing alongside jazz musicians including Stan Getz, before pivoting fully to economics. He earned a BA summa cum laude from NYU’s Stern School of Business in 1948 and an MA in 1950, eventually completing a PhD in economics from NYU in 1977. He co-founded the consulting firm Townsend-Greenspan & Co. in 1954, which became the platform for his decades of policy advising.

His appointment as Federal Reserve chairman by President Ronald Reagan in August 1987 came weeks before Black Monday, the largest single-day stock market crash in US history at that point, and proved to be a baptism by fire he navigated with skill that would define his early reputation. Over 18 years spanning five terms, he presided over one of the longest economic expansions in US history (1991–2001), managed the aftermath of the dot-com bust, and guided monetary policy through 9/11. A 2000 Time magazine cover dubbed him part of “the Committee to Save the World.” His legacy grew more complicated after 2008: the housing bubble and global financial crisis that erupted after his departure drew intense scrutiny of his low-rate policy and his ideological opposition to derivatives regulation. In October 2008 congressional testimony, he acknowledged a “flaw” in his worldview, a rare and striking public reckoning. He is survived by his wife, Andrea Mitchell.

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Alan Greenspan died on June 22, 2026, at the age of 100, from complications of Parkinson's disease. His death was announced by his wife, NBC News journalist Andrea Mitchell.

Alan Greenspan was 100 years old at the time of his death on June 22, 2026. He was born on March 6, 1926, in New York City, making him one of the most long-lived major figures in American financial history.

Alan Greenspan served as the 13th chairman of the Federal Reserve, the United States central bank, from August 1987 to January 2006, a tenure of nearly 19 years across five terms and four presidencies: Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Clinton, and George W. Bush. In that role he was arguably the most powerful economist in the world. Before the Fed, he ran the economic consulting firm Townsend-Greenspan & Co., which he co-founded in 1954.

Alan Greenspan was married to Andrea Mitchell, the veteran NBC News journalist and anchor, in a ceremony in April 1997 officiated by Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The couple had been together since 1984. Mitchell announced Greenspan's death on June 22, 2026. He had been briefly married previously, to Joan Mitchell in 1952, a marriage that lasted less than a year.

Greenspan served as Federal Reserve chairman for 18 years and 5 months, from August 11, 1987 to January 31, 2006, across five consecutive terms. This is the second-longest tenure in that role in US history, behind only William McChesney Martin, who served 19 years from 1951 to 1970.

Irrational exuberance is a phrase Greenspan used in a December 1996 speech to the American Enterprise Institute, questioning whether investor enthusiasm had driven stock prices far above their underlying value. The phrase sent global stock markets briefly lower the following morning. It became a lasting shorthand for speculative excess and was used as the title of economist Robert Shiller's influential 2000 book on stock market bubbles. Greenspan used it at the height of the dot-com era, though he did not significantly tighten policy to deflate the bubble that followed.

Not singlehandedly, but many economists argue his decisions materially contributed to it. The core criticism is that Greenspan kept the federal funds rate unusually low (1% in 2003–2004) after the dot-com crash, helping to inflate the housing bubble, while also being a strong advocate for financial deregulation and opposing oversight of complex derivatives. In October 2008 congressional testimony, Greenspan made a striking admission: 'I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interest of organisations, specifically banks, were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and the equity in their firms.' He acknowledged a 'flaw' in his worldview, one of the most notable public concessions by any public official during the crisis.

Greenspan was a lifelong admirer of Ayn Rand, attending her New York salon in the 1950s and remaining close to her until her death in 1982. His economic outlook was rooted in free-market libertarianism, a conviction that markets self-regulate efficiently and that government intervention tends to distort outcomes. This translated into a policy preference for deregulation, scepticism of financial oversight, and faith that sophisticated institutions could manage their own risks. The 2008 crisis forced him to publicly acknowledge a 'flaw' in this framework.

Greenspan published three major works. The Age of Turbulence (2007) is his memoir, covering his 18-year Fed tenure and personal history. The Map and the Territory (2013) is a post-crisis analysis of why economic forecasting failed. Capitalism in America: A History (2018), co-authored with Adrian Wooldridge, is a broad economic history of the United States from colonial times to the present.