Background

Mr. Volcker was born on September 1927 in Cape May, New Jersey. He earned a bachelor of arts degree, summa cum laude, from Princeton in 1949, and a master of arts degree in political economy and government from the Harvard University Graduate School of Public Administration in 1951. From 1951 to 1952, he was Rotary Foundation Fellow at the London School of Economics.

Mr. Volcker’s experience with the New York Fed began when he worked as a research assistant in the research department during the summers of 1949 and 1950. He returned to the New York Fed as an economist in the research department in 1952, and became a special assistant in the securities department in 1955. Two years later, he resigned to become a financial economist at Chase Manhattan Bank.

In 1962, he joined the Treasury as Director of the Office of Financial Analysis, and in 1963 he was appointed Deputy Undersecretary for Monetary Affairs. In 1965, he rejoined Chase Manhattan as vice president and director of forward planning.

From 1969 to 1974, he was Undersecretary of the Treasury for Monetary Affairs. His five-and-a-half-year tenure covered a period of rapid change in international and domestic financial affairs.

After leaving the Treasury, Mr. Volcker became senior fellow at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University for the 1974-75 academic year.

Paul Volcker became president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank on August 1, 1975, at the age of 47. As president, he also served as vice chairman of the FOMC. Previously he served in a variety of positions with the Treasury, Chase Manhattan Bank, and the New York Fed.

He was named chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System by President Carter, and was sworn in on August 6, 1979. He served until August 11, 1987.

After leaving the Federal Reserve in 1987, he became chairman of the prominent New York investment banking firm, J. Rothschild, Wolfensohn & Co., a corporate advisory and investment firm in New York, run by James D. Wolfensohn, who was later to become president of the World Bank.

In April 2004, the United Nations assigned Volcker to research possible corruption in the Iraqi Oil for Food program. In the report summarising its research, Volcker criticized Kojo Annan, son of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and the Swiss company Cotecna Inspection SA, Kojo's employer, for trying to conceal their relationship. He concluded in his March 2005 report that "there is no evidence that the selection of Cotecna in 1998 was subject to improper influence of the Secretary General in the bidding or selection process". However, while Volcker did not implicate the Secretary General in the selection process, he did cast serious doubt on Kofi Annan, whose "management performance...fell short of the standards that the United Nations Organization should strive to maintain." Volcker was a director of the United Nations Association of the United States of America between 2000 and 2004, prior to his being appointed to the Independent Inquiry by Kofi Annan.

As of October 2006, he is the current Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the influential Washington-based financial advisory body, the Group of Thirty, and is a member of the Trilateral Commission. He has had a long association with the Rockefeller family, not only with his positions at Chase Bank and the Trilateral Commission, but also through membership of the Trust Committee of Rockefeller Group, Inc. (RGI), which he joined in 1987. That entity managed, at one time, the Rockefeller Center on behalf of the numerous members of the Rockefeller clan. He currently serves as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the International House in Manhattan, NY. He was a founding member of the Trilateral Commission.

In January 2008, he endorsed Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama for President.

On April 8, 2008, he was the featured speaker at "The Economic Club of New York" and spoke about the issues and causes of the 2008 US recession, and critiqued the 2008 US financial system and the 2008 Federal Reserve policies. Volcker also served as an economic advisor to President-elect Barack Obama during the presidential campaign.

On November 26,2008, Obama appointed Volcker as Chair of the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board. According to the Obama transition press release:

"Members of the Board will be drawn from among distinguished citizens outside the government who are qualified on the basis of achievement, experience, independence, and integrity. The Board will bring a diverse set of perspectives and voices from different parts of the country and different sectors of the economy to bear in the formulation and evaluation of economic policy. Additional members will be announced in the future.

"The Board will meet regularly and provide advice directly to the President on the design, implementation, and evaluation of programs to jump-start economic growth, create jobs, raise wages and living standards, address the housing crisis and stabilize financial markets. The Board will also focus on how the response to the short-run economic crisis is laying the groundwork for the reforms necessary for longer-run prosperity."

Professional Positions

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Accomplishments

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Criticism

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Additional Information

As a child, Volcker attended his mother's Lutheran church, while his father went to his Episcopal church. Volcker married Barbara Bahnson, the daughter of a physician, on September 11, 1954. She died on June 14, 1998, having suffered from lifelong diabetes, as well as rheumatoid arthritis. They had two children, Janice, a nurse and a Georgetown University graduate, and James, a research assistant and a New York University graduate who was born with cerebral palsy, as well as four grandchildren.

Volcker is an avid fly-fisherman, having recounted, "[t]he greatest strategic error of my adult life was to take my wife to Maine on our honeymoon on a fly-fishing trip." Volcker is also known for his impressive height of 6 feet 7 inches (2.0 m), standing exactly a foot taller than his wife when they first met.

(Source: Wikipedia)

Biography Links

• New York Fed Bio