Provides an in-depth overview of the Federal Reserve System, including information about monetary policy and the economy, the Federal Reserve in the international sphere, supervision and regulation, consumer and community affairs and services offered by Reserve Banks. Contains several appendixes, including a brief explanation of Federal Reserve regulations, a glossary of terms, and a list of additional publications.

The Federal Reserve System, created in the early 20th century, is now more than a hundred years old. This book takes the reader through the founding and first century of Federal Reserve monetary policy, and uses the analysis of the past to address the present and future issues of central banking.With its focus on the actual policies, rather than the politics or individuals that determined those policies, this book addresses issues that have plagued monetarists since the onset of the Great Recession. Then, it proceeds to discuss the issues that will affect the efficacy of policy in the future. This section of the book is relevant for all central banks as central bank behavior post the onset of the Great Recession was similar throughout the world.The book presents an analysis of the path of inflation that puzzled the experts. It adds an analysis of central banking's ability or lack thereof to influence market interest rates. Lastly, it explains the current exploding crypto-currency craze, its potential to supplant traditional transactions media, and the future of these so-called currencies.

21st Century Monetary Policy takes readers inside the Federal Reserve, explaining what it does and why. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Federal Reserve deployed an extraordinary range of policy tools that helped prevent the collapse of the financial system and the U.S. economy. Chair Jerome Powell and his colleagues lent directly to U.S. businesses, purchased trillions of dollars of government securities, pumped dollars into the international financial system, and crafted a new framework for monetary policy that emphasized job creation. These strategies would have astonished Powell’s late-20th-century predecessors, from William McChesney Martin to Alan Greenspan, and the advent of these tools raises new questions about the future landscape of economic policy. In 21st Century Monetary Policy, Ben S. Bernanke—former chair of the Federal Reserve and one of the world’s leading economists—explains the Fed’s evolution and speculates on its future. Taking a fresh look at the bank’s policymaking over the past seventy years, including his own time as chair, Bernanke shows how changes in the economy have driven the Fed’s innovations. He also lays out new challenges confronting the Fed, including the return of inflation, cryptocurrencies, increased risks of financial instability, and threats to its independence. Beyond explaining the central bank’s new policymaking tools, Bernanke also captures the drama of moments when so much hung on the Fed’s decisions, as well as the personalities and philosophies of those who led the institution.

The paper considers the merits of rules and discretion for monetary policy when the structure of the macroeconomic model and the probability distributions of disturbances are not well defined. It is argued that when it is costly to delay policy reactions to seldom-experienced shocks until formal algorithmic learning has been accomplished, and when time consistency problems are significant, a mixed strategy that combines a simple verifiable rule with discretion is attractive. The paper also discusses mechanisms for mitigating credibility problems and emphasizes that arguments against various types of simple rules lose their force under a mixed strategy.

Collects the transcripts of a series of lectures given by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke about the 2008 financial crisis as part of a course at George Washington University on the role of the Federal Reserve in the economy.

Controlling inflation is among the most important objectives of economic policy. By maintaining price stability, policy makers are able to reduce uncertainty, improve price-monitoring mechanisms, and facilitate more efficient planning and allocation of resources, thereby raising productivity. This volume focuses on understanding the causes of the Great Inflation of the 1970s and ’80s, which saw rising inflation in many nations, and which propelled interest rates across the developing world into the double digits. In the decades since, the immediate cause of the period’s rise in inflation has been the subject of considerable debate. Among the areas of contention are the role of monetary policy in driving inflation and the implications this had both for policy design and for evaluating the performance of those who set the policy. Here, contributors map monetary policy from the 1960s to the present, shedding light on the ways in which the lessons of the Great Inflation were absorbed and applied to today’s global and increasingly complex economic environment.

Presents a history of the Federal Reserve, discussing how the central bank came about, what its purpose is, and its role in the Great Recession of 2007-2010.

Introduction to Business covers the scope and sequence of most introductory business courses. The book provides detailed explanations in the context of core themes such as customer satisfaction, ethics, entrepreneurship, global business, and managing change. Introduction to Business includes hundreds of current business examples from a range of industries and geographic locations, which feature a variety of individuals. The outcome is a balanced approach to the theory and application of business concepts, with attention to the knowledge and skills necessary for student success in this course and beyond. This is an adaptation of Introduction to Business by OpenStax. You can access the textbook as pdf for free at openstax.org. Minor editorial changes were made to ensure a better ebook reading experience. Textbook content produced by OpenStax is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

How should governments and central banks use monetary policy to create a healthy economy? Traditionally, policymakers have used such strategies as controlling the growth of the money supply or pegging the exchange rate to a stable currency. In recent years a promising new approach has emerged: publicly announcing and pursuing specific targets for the rate of inflation. This book is the first in-depth study of inflation targeting. Combining penetrating theoretical analysis with detailed empirical studies of countries where inflation targeting has been adopted, the authors show that the strategy has clear advantages over traditional policies. They argue that the U.S. Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank should adopt this strategy, and they make specific proposals for doing so. The book begins by explaining the unique features and advantages of inflation targeting. The authors argue that the simplicity and openness of inflation targeting make it far easier for the public to understand the intent and effects of monetary policy. This strategy also increases policymakers' accountability for inflation performance and can accommodate flexible, even "discretionary," monetary policy actions without sacrificing central banks' credibility. The authors examine how well variants of this approach have worked in nine countries: Germany and Switzerland (which employ a money-focused form of inflation targeting), New Zealand, Canada, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Israel, Spain, and Australia. They show that these countries have typically seen lower inflation, lower inflation expectations, and lower nominal interest rates, and have found that one-time shocks to the price level have less of a "pass-through" effect on inflation. These effects, in turn, are improving the climate for economic growth. The authors warn, however, that the success of inflation targeting depends on operational details, such as how the targets are defined and when they are announced. They also show that inflation targeting is not a panacea that can make inflation perfectly predictable or reduce it without economic costs. Clear, balanced, and authoritative, Inflation Targeting is a groundbreaking study that will have a major impact on the debate over the right monetary strategy for the coming decades. As a unique comparative study of what central banks actually do in different countries around the world, this book will also be invaluable to anyone interested in how economic policy is made.

Details the evolution of the monetary standard from the start of the Federal Reserve through the end of the Greenspan era. The book places that evolution in the context of the intellectual and political environment of the time. By understanding the fitful process of replacing a gold standard with a paper money standard, the conduct of monetary policy becomes a series of experiments useful for understanding the fundamental issues concerning money and prices. How did the recurrent monetary instability of the 20th century relate to the economic instability and to the associated political and social turbulence? After the detour in policy represented by FOMC chairmen Arthur Burns and G. William Miller, Paul Volcker and Alan Greenspan established the monetary standard originally foreshadowed by William McChesney Martin, who became chairman in 1951. The Monetary Policy of the Federal Reserve explains in a straightforward way the emergence and nature of the modern, inflation-targeting central bank.