May 7 (Bloomberg) -- Ben S. Bernanke may be too slow on the trigger.

That's the conclusion some economists are drawing as the Federal Reserve chairman and fellow policy makers prepare for their May 9 meeting, likely to be the seventh in a row without a change in interest rates.

Bernanke's consensus-driven decision-making style, fondness for inflation targets and reliance on the Fed staff all suggest he'll be slower than predecessor Alan Greenspan to ease credit, economists say. Such caution could prove critical if the economy fails to improve, as the Fed expects, after growth in the first quarter was the weakest in four years.

``Bernanke is locked into the Fed forecast and the Fed consensus,'' says Allen Sinai, president of New York-based consultants Decision Economics. ``He's much less likely to move quickly than Greenspan.''

A minority of economists even say Bernanke may have already waited too long to reduce rates and the U.S. is headed into recession or near-recession.

``The Fed will cut rates sooner or later, but that won't prevent a hard landing,'' says Nouriel Roubini, chairman of Roubini Global Economics in New York and professor at New York University's Stern School of Business.

Risk of Recession

San Francisco Fed President Janet Yellen told reporters after a speech in New York April 27 that she saw ``some risk'' of a recession. Greenspan, who stepped down as Fed chairman in February 2006, has put the chances of a recession at one in three.

Bernanke in some ways has little choice but to stick with the operating style he's fashioned for himself since taking over from Greenspan 15 months ago.

The 53-year-old former Princeton University professor doesn't have the nitty-gritty feel for the economy that Greenspan, 81, achieved from decades spent studying its ups and downs. Bernanke also lacks the stature within the Fed and the financial markets that Greenspan earned in 18 1/2 years atop the central bank.

``He's too smart to play the game the way Greenspan did,'' Sinai says. ``It would not be his strong suit.''

Bernanke has already put off easing credit longer than Greenspan did in 1994-95, when the former chairman engineered a so-called soft landing for the economy.

Easier Credit

After raising rates to 6 percent from 5.50 percent in February 1995, Greenspan signaled in a speech three weeks later that easier credit was on its way. The Fed followed up with a rate cut in July, five months after its previous increase.

Now, 10 months after the Fed last raised rates under Bernanke, it's yet to signal that it's close to cutting them. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg are unanimous in predicting the Fed will hold its target for the overnight interbank rate at 5.25 percent when it meets this week.

The economy has what Credit Suisse Chief Economist Neal Soss describes as a case of ``the blahs.'' Growth slowed in the first quarter to a 1.3 percent pace from 2.5 percent in the fourth quarter, weighed down by the longest housing recession since 1981-82. Employers added 88,000 jobs in April, the smallest monthly increase in more than two years.

Faster Inflation

Even so, minutes of the Fed's last policy meeting on March 21 reported that policy makers considered faster inflation a greater risk than slower growth.

This focus means that the hurdle for a rate cut ``is high,'' says Laurence Meyer, vice chairman of Macroeconomic Advisers LLC in St. Louis and a former Fed governor.

Inflation measured by the Fed's preferred index ran at a year-over-year rate of 2.1 percent in March. That's above the 1 to 2 percent range that Bernanke, an ardent believer in inflation targets, has identified as his comfort zone.

``The Fed will be more inclined to cut rates after inflation dips under 2 percent for a couple of months,'' says David Resler, chief economist for Nomura Securities International in New York.

Greenspan shied away from identifying a target for inflation out of concern that it might hamstring the Fed just when the economy needed a boost.

Bernanke may be slower than his predecessor to come to the aid of the economy for another reason: Productivity growth is fading rather than accelerating as it did during the final Greenspan years. That means Bernanke faces the danger of reigniting inflation if he reduces rates too soon.

Underlying Trend

In her recent speech, Yellen suggested that the underlying trend of productivity growth has decelerated to 2 to 2 1/2 percent from around 3 percent in 2000 to 2005. Productivity growth slowed to an annual rate of 1.7 percent in the first quarter from 2.1 percent in the fourth, the government reported on May 3.

Fed officials say Bernanke has also pursued a more consensus-oriented approach than Greenspan did within the central bank's Federal Open Market Committee. Greenspan would start FOMC policy discussions by stating his own views, making it difficult for others to disagree. His successor lets others speak first.

Bernanke also leans more heavily on the Fed's staff in trying to figure out where the economy is heading than did Greenspan, who frequently fashioned his own take, and in his closing days at the Fed did an in-depth study on housing and housing finance.

`More Inertial'

Alan Blinder, a former Fed vice chairman who's now a Princeton professor, has extolled the benefits of decision- making by committee in part because everyone's views are taken into account. Yet he also recognized in a 2005 paper on Greenspan's tenure that ``committee decisions are likely to be more inertial'' and thus harder to change.

Jan Hatzius, chief U.S. economist at Goldman Sachs & Co. in New York, says Bernanke will ease credit once unemployment rises meaningfully, just as Greenspan did during his tenure.

Even so, the new Fed chairman may tolerate a bigger rise in the jobless rate than Greenspan would have, Hatzius says. The former Fed chairman has shown more worry about the impact of the housing decline on consumer spending than have either Bernanke or the Fed staff.

``The Fed has had success with a stick-to-your-guns approach over the past year'' as the economy has avoided both a recession and a rise in inflation, says Louis Crandall, chief economist at Jersey City, New Jersey-based Wrightson ICAP LLC, a unit of ICAP Plc, the world's largest interdealer broker. ``The risk is that they may be less inclined to second-guess that policy than they should.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Rich Miller in Washington at rmiller28@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: May 6, 2007 19:03 EDT