Does Bernanke Have the Best Inflation Record

In his testimony before the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday, the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, boldly declared: “You called me a dove. Well, maybe in some respects I am, but on the other hand, my inflation record is the best of any Federal Reserve chairman in the postwar period, or at least one of the best, about 2 percent average inflation.” (To which the Twitterverse responded, #ohsnap.)

Does he really have the best inflation record Michael Feroli, an economist at JPMorgan Chase, crunched the numbers.

“If the definition of ‘best’ is 2 percent inflation, then it’s hard to question his record, as he is spot on that number,” Mr. Feroli wrote in a note to clients.

Other Fed chairmen have had lower inflation rates; Eugene Meyer’s tenure, from 1930 to 1933, averaged negative 9 percent inflation, whch is not exactly desirable. But Mr. Feroli calculates that no one in the postwar period had a lower inflation track record.

Here are his calculations for the average rate of inflation for Fed chairmen, using the headline Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index for as far back as it goes (to 1947) and the headline Consumer Price Index in the years before then:

Chairman	Years	Average inflation rate (%)
Daniel R. Crissinger	1923-27	0.9
Roy A. Young	1927-30	-0.9
Eugene Meyer	1930-33	-9
Eugene Black	1933-34	1.3
Marriner Eccles	1934-48	3.6
Thomas McCabe	1948-51	2.6
William McChesney Martin Jr.	1951-70	2.2
Arthur F. Burns	1970-78	6.2
G. William Miller	1978-79	8.8
Paul Volcker	1979-87	5.3
Alan Greenspan	1987-2006	2.6
Ben S. Bernanke	2006-Present	2