Alan Greenspan is the pre-eminent central banker of our era. During his 18 years as chairman of the Federal Reserve, the US has enjoyed low and stable inflation and suffered only two shallow recessions. It has done so despite a stock market crash in 1987, a big downturn in commercial property in the late 1980s, a series of international financial crises in the 1990s, a three-year bear market after 2000, several wars and a terrorist attack on the US.

It is little wonder that Mr Greenspan has become an almost legendary figure. Yet how good has his performance been and what lessons does his tenure bequeath? One reason for questioning the uniqueness of Mr Greenspan’s capacities is that he succeeded a giant. As Mr Greenspan himself said in a speech delivered on the 25th anniversary of the decision to tighten monetary policy: “The policy change initiated under the leadership of chairman Paul Volcker on that Saturday morning [October 6 1979] rescued our nation’s economy from a dangerous path of ever-escalating inflation and instability”. Mr Volcker had to crush inflation. Mr Greenspan had merely to keep the show on the road.