Arthur F. Burns

Arthur F. Burns was an American economist who chaired the Federal Reserve from 1970 to 1978 and served as U.S. ambassador to West Germany from 1981 to 1985.

Richard Nixon: Richard Nixon was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. Nixon appointed Burns Federal Reserve chair and pressed him to support economic expansion.
Federal Reserve: The Federal Reserve is the central banking system of the United States, responsible for monetary policy and financial stability. Burns led this institution as chair during a period of rising inflation.
Great Inflation: The Great Inflation was the prolonged rise in U.S. inflation from the mid-1960s through the early 1980s. Inflation accelerated during Burns’s years as Fed chair.
Columbia University: Columbia University is a private research university in New York City. Burns earned his doctorate in economics at Columbia in 1934.
Paul Volcker: Paul Volcker was an American economist and central banker who chaired the Federal Reserve from 1979 to 1987. Volcker succeeded Burns and pursued a sharply different approach to inflation.
Monetary policy: Monetary policy is the use of interest rates and other tools to influence money, credit, and economic conditions. Burns’s chairmanship centered on setting monetary policy amid competing economic goals.
Stagflation: Stagflation is the combination of high inflation, weak economic growth, and elevated unemployment. The 1970s conditions confronting Burns combined rising prices with economic stagnation.
National Bureau of Economic Research: The National Bureau of Economic Research is a private U.S. organization that conducts and disseminates economic research. Burns directed the NBER for decades before and during his public service.
Milton Friedman: Milton Friedman was an American economist known for monetarism and arguments for limiting discretionary economic policy. Friedman criticized the discretionary monetary policy Burns practiced.
Federal funds rate: The federal funds rate is the interest rate banks charge one another for overnight reserve loans. The Fed’s target rate was a key instrument available to Burns’s committee.

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Wesley Clair MitchellRelated: Burns extended the NBER’s business-cycle research tradition Mitchell helped build.