Former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan dies at 100 in New York
Why it matters: Greenspan led the Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006, shaping US monetary policy through booms, crashes and the dot-com era.
Alan Greenspan, the longtime Federal Reserve chair whose remarks could jolt global markets, died Monday at his home in New York at age 100. NBC News, citing his wife Andrea Mitchell, reported he died from complications of Parkinson's disease. Greenspan led the US central bank from 1987 until his retirement in 2006, serving under four presidents and overseeing a long stretch of expansion, low unemployment and a powerful stock market run. He became closely associated with the phrase “irrational exuberance” after a 1996 speech that briefly knocked stocks lower. His legacy was later clouded by criticism that easy policy and light oversight helped set the stage for the 2008 financial crisis.