Grossman Calls for Term Limits on Fed Chair

Because the chairman of the Federal Reserve is often described as the second most powerful person in the country, we should curtail his or her ability to hold onto that job indefinitely for the same reason, argues Professor of Economics Richard Grossman in the Athens Banner-Herald and other newspapers.

In an op-ed circulated by the McClatchy-Tribune News Service, he writes: “As Janet Yellen prepares to replace Ben Bernanke at the head of the Federal Reserve and as that institution commences its 100th year of operation, it is time to enact one simple reform: the chairman of the Fed should be limited to serving two full four-year terms.

“The obvious precedent for this measure is the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which imposes a similar term limit on the president of the United States. The president is restricted in this way to prevent one person from accumulating too much power and influence over our national institutions.”

Grossman, who is also a visiting scholar at the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University, recently published  “Wrong: Nine Economic Policy Disasters and What We Can Learn from Them.” (Oxford University Press).