Alan Greenspan, former Fed chair, dies at 100

Alan Greenspan, hailed as the greatest Federal Reserve chairman when he retired in 2006 but derided for a severe financial crisis that followed barely two years later, died on Monday aged 100, his wife said.

Greenspan, who exerted a powerful influence on the US economy during his tenure at the helm of the Fed from August 1987 to January 2006, died at his home from complications of Parkinson's Disease, Andrea Mitchell said in a statement.

"He was a giant of a man who helped shape the US economy for decades under presidents of both parties, but was always honest in acknowledging his mistakes," Mitchell said.

"He will be remembered for his brilliance and his kindness. Being his life partner was the joy of my life," she added.

Greenspan oversaw the second-longest economic expansion in US history, an uninterrupted decade of growth from March 1991 to March 2001. His decision to let the economy run - despite pressure to raise interest rates against an inflation threat that never materialised - helped foster years of US prosperity and earned him rock star status as an economic "maestro".

The era was marked by his prescient judgment that a productivity surge in the mid-1990s would keep inflation contained.

His intuition in that moment is still a touchstone for policymakers, and has been referred to by former Fed Chair Jerome Powell as an example of how judgment can sometimes outperform technical models of the economy