even the nation’s top central bankers seem to like them. A new report shows that mutual funds are a big part of the portfolios of six of seven governors who oversee the Federal Reserve System. Thelone exception is Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, who keeps nearly all his financial assets in Treasury bills. But even his wife owns several Dreyfus funds in her portfolio.

Although the Fed governors are a wealthy group, they favor mutual funds over more upscale investments like hedge funds and private money management accounts.

“It’s interesting to look at the personal finances of these people who run the economy,” said Thomas Schlesinger, executive director of the Financial Markets Center, an independent research group in Philomont, Va., that compiled the report.

It’s hard to say exactly how wealthy the governors are, however, as the disclosure forms they must complete ask for account value ranges, not specific numbers.

Based on conservative estimates by the Financial Markets Center, five of the seven governors have more than $1 million in non- housing financial assets; Donald Kohn and Mark Olson are the exceptions.

Using more aggressive estimates, everyone but Kohn is worth at least $1 million.

Regardless of the scale, Greenspan and his wife are the second- richest couple in the bunch, with assets between $3.7 million and $8.2 million. Susan Bies and her husband are wealthiest, with assets between $6.6 million and $16.8 million.

Snapshots of the governors

**Greenspan has the least interesting portfolio by far, with 96 percent of his assets parked in Treasury bills and no equity positions. However, his wife, NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell, has a livelier portfolio that includes 11 common stocks and four Dreyfus mutual funds.

**Vice Chairman Roger Ferguson has a diverse portfolio spread among stock and fixed-income holdings.

He and his wife hold more than 30 fund accounts, mostly in portfolios offered by the Vanguard and Smith Barney groups. Ferguson lists Vanguard’s 500 Index fund, which tracks the Standard & Poor’s 500, as his largest holding. He also has positions in some of Vanguard’s foreign index funds.

**Edward Gramlich, a former academic, holds most of his financial assets in pension fund giant TIAA-CREF, which serves college employees. His stand-alone investments include the Merrill Lynch Equity Income Fund.

His wife holds a portfolio dominated by mutual funds. She has 11 fund accounts, including Fidelity Contrafund, Fidelity Growth and Vanguard Growth Index.

**Former professor Ben Bernanke, like Gramlich, lists a TIAA- CREF retirement account as his largest holding. Eleven mutual funds, from groups including Merrill Lynch and Liberty, accounted for most of the rest of his portfolio.

Bernanke’s funds are an eclectic mix of growth, technology, health, foreign, high-yield and balanced.

**Bies, the sole female Fed governor, also is the wealthiest, stemming from her former job as a senior executive at First Tennessee Corp.

She and her spouse hold more than a dozen mutual funds, including accounts worth more than $500,000 each in Harbor International, Vanguard 500 Index, Pimco High Yield, Davis New York Venture and Vanguard Mid-Cap Index.

Bies and her husband also have considerable money parked with brokerage Charles Schwab.

**Olson reported the second-smallest portfolio after Kohn. It too was dominated by mutual funds, including those from the Fidelity, Federated, AIM, Vanguard and Franklin-Templeton families.

The Fidelity Fund and Fidelity Growth & Income ranked as his largest positions, supplementing a notable retirement stake with former employer Ernst & Young.

**Kohn, the only governor who has spent his entire career at the Fed, also has the smallest portfolio to show for it. He and his wife own 17 mutual funds, mostly from T. Rowe Price.

The Kohns most closely resemble middle-class investors, with all but a few of their holdings worth less than $15,000. Their top positions are in funds ING Growth & Income, ING Balanced and T. Rowe Price Growth Stock.

Russ Wiles is a financial writer and columnist for the Arizona Republic and author of the book How Mutual Funds Work (Prentice Hall, $15.95). Direct your questions and comments to Russ Wiles, Business News, The Arizona Republic, P.O. Box 1950, Phoenix, Ariz. 85001.