1927–, American economist, b. Cape May, N.J. After working as an under secretary in the Treasury Department (1969–74) and as president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank (1975–79), he was appointed the chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in 1979. He pursued a restrictive monetary policy to combat inflation but was forced by a stagnant economy and high unemployment to support increased monetary growth during the mid-1980s. Volcker was succeeded as Federal Reserve Board chairman by Alan Greenspan in 1987. He subsequently was successful as an investment banker, retiring in 1996. In 1999 a official panel he headed that investigated Swiss banks' handling of the accounts of Holocaust victims issued a report that was critical of the banks but did not recommend any changes in a settlement reached in 1998 (see Holocaust). Volcker became chairman of the International Accounting Standards Committee Foundation in 2000 and, in the wake of the Enron bankruptcy, headed (2002) an independent oversight board at Arthur Andersen, the accounting firm that was responsible for auditing Enron. He is the author, with Toyoo Gyohten, of Changing Fortunes: The World's Money and the Threat to American Leadership (1992).

The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright© 2004, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products N.V. All rights reserved.

-49846-