I’m surprised to find nothing about his departure on this board.
Volcker’s reputation grew with time and many years after he left the Fed. The opposite happened with Greenspan as he was much more well regarded and respected during his time as chairman.
No one has ever been as scrutinized and criticized as Ben. Even a Presidential candidate promised to fire him if elected. History will most likely remember Ben as one of the greatest and creative chairman to ever serve, to the chagrin of all the inflation hawks that pollute the airwaves.
Most likely, it is because no one expects any policy changes due to his departure. While Bernanke was the chairman of the federal reserve, most of the other FOMC members remain and his successor is perceived to continue their current policies.
I think Ben did a good job with the situation he was handed and I think that history will make his name grow more respected with time. The fact that he didn’t overstay his welcome is good and it is probably also good that he left with tapering on the schedule and started.
If something goes wrong in the next few years. Some people will surely try to blame him and his push for unconventional monetary policy, so expect people to try to slime his record. Depending on what the crisis is, he may deserve sliming or not, but one thing that is sure is that conventional monetary policy would have been a disaster.
If all that money printing didn’t produce substantial inflation over five years time, just think what little or no printing would likely have done. You might say “well it didn’t have any effect on deflation at all,” which I don’t think is true, but at least is a possibility. But if you say that printing didn’t save us from a worse deflation, then you can’t really argue that it will lead to inflation, because the only way to argue the former is to say that printing money has no effect on inflation/deflation.
Ben defintely did have his share of critics, though. Remember when for six months or a year, people jokingly called him “The Bernank”?