Ben Bernanke, who stepped down as chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve on Friday, checked into work Monday morning at his new job at the Brookings Institution, a centrist policy think tank based in Washington. Bernanke, whose eight-year tenure atop the U.S. central bank was marked by financial crisis and policy experimentation in the face of the Great Recession, joins Brookings as a distinguished fellow in residence at its economic studies program, the institution said on Monday. There had been some speculation that the former Princeton professor would land at Brookings, where he is expected to write a book, though ... (full story)