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Working Paper
Navigating Constraints: The Evolution of Federal Reserve Monetary Policy, 1935-59
Carlson, Mark A.; Wheelock, David C. (2014-06-09)
The 1950s are often pointed to as a decade in which the Federal Reserve operated a particularly successful monetary policy. The present paper examines the evolution of Federal Reserve monetary policy from the mid-1930s through the 1950s in an effort to understand better the apparent success of policy in the 1950s. Whereas others have debated whether the Fed had a sophisticated understanding of how to implement policy, our focus is on how the constraints on the Fed changed over time. Roosevelt Administration gold policies and New Deal legislation limited the Fed's ability to conduct an ...
Finance and Economics Discussion Series , Paper 2014-44

Working Paper
Did Doubling Reserve Requirements Cause the 1937-38 Recession? New Evidence on the Impact of Reserve Requirements on Bank Reserve Demand and Lending
Wheelock, David C.; Mason, Joseph R.; Calomiris, Charles W. (2022-05-04)
In 1936-37, the Federal Reserve doubled member banks' reserve requirements. Friedman and Schwartz (1963) famously argued that the doubling increased reserve demand and forced the money supply to contract, which they argued caused the recession of 1937-38. Using a new database on individual banks, we show that higher reserve requirements did not generally increase banks' reserve demand or contract lending because reserve requirements were not binding for most banks. Aggregate effects on credit supply from reserve requirement increases were therefore economically small and statistically zero.
Working Papers , Paper 2022-011

Working Paper
Managing a New Policy Framework: Paul Volcker, the St. Louis Fed, and the 1979-82 War on Inflation
Wheelock, David C.; Kliesen, Kevin L. (2020-07-23)
In October 1979, Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker persuaded his FOMC colleagues to adopt a new policy framework that i) accepted responsibility for controlling inflation and ii) implemented new operating procedures to control the growth of monetary aggregates in an effort to restore price stability. These moves were strongly supported by monetarist-oriented economists, including the leadership and staff of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. The next three years saw inflation peak and then fall sharply, but also two recessions and considerable volatility in interest rates and money ...
Working Papers , Paper 2020-022

Working Paper
Banking on the Boom, Tripped by the Bust: Banks and the World War I Agricultural Price Shock
Wheelock, David C.; Jaremski, Matthew (2017-11-03)
How do banks respond to asset booms? This paper examines i) how U.S. banks responded to the World War I farmland boom; ii) the impact of regulation; and iii) how bank closures exacerbated the post-war bust. The boom encouraged new bank formation and balance sheet expansion (especially by new banks). Deposit insurance amplified the impact of rising crop prices on bank portfolios, while higher minimum capital requirements dampened the effects. Banks that responded most aggressively to the asset boom had a higher probability of closing in the bust, and counties with more bank closures ...
Working Papers , Paper 2017-36

Journal Article
Banking industry consolidation and market structure: impact of the financial crisis and recession
Wheelock, David C. (2011-11)
The number of U.S. commercial banks and savings institutions declined by 12 percent between December 31, 2006, and December 31, 2010, continuing a consolidation trend begun in the mid-1980s. Banking industry consolidation has been marked by sharply higher shares of deposits held by the largest banks?the 10 largest banks now hold nearly 50 percent of total U.S. deposits. However, antitrust policy is predicated on the assumption that banking markets are local in nature, and enforcement has focused on preventing bank mergers from increasing the concentration of local banking markets. The author ...
Review , Volume 93 , Issue Nov , Pages 419-438

Journal Article
Changing the rules: state mortgage foreclosure moratoria during the Great Depression
Wheelock, David C. (2008-11)
Many U.S. states imposed temporary moratoria on farm and nonfarm residential mortgage foreclosures during the Great Depression. This article describes the conditions that led some states to impose these moratoria and other mortgage relief during the Depression and discusses the economic effects. Moratoria were more common in states with large farm populations (as a percentage of total state population) and high farm mortgage foreclosure rates, although nonfarm mortgage distress appears to help explain why a few states with relatively low farm foreclosure rates also imposed moratoria. The ...
Review , Volume 90 , Issue Nov , Pages 569-584

Journal Article
Monetary policy in the Great Depression: what the Fed did and why
Wheelock, David C. (1992-03)
Review , Issue Mar , Pages 3-28

Working Paper
Theodore Roosevelt, the Election of 1912, and the Founding of the Federal Reserve
Wheelock, David C.; Jaremski, Matthew (2023-04)
This paper examines how the election of 1912 changed the makeup of Congress and led to the Federal Reserve Act. The decision of Theodore Roosevelt and other Progressives to run as third-party candidates split the Republican Party and enabled Democrats to capture the White House and Congress. We show that the election produced a less polarized Congress and that new members were more likely to support the Act. Absent the Republican split, Republicans would likely have held the White House and Congress, and enactment of legislation to establish a central bank would have been unlikely or ...
Working Papers , Paper 2023-008

Working Paper
Interbank Connections, Contagion and Bank Distress in the Great Depression
Wheelock, David C.; Jaremski, Matthew; Calomiris, Charles W. (2019-01-01)
Liquidity shocks transmitted through interbank connections contributed to bank distress during the Great Depression. New data on interbank connections reveal that banks were much more likely to close when their correspondents closed. Further, after the Federal Reserve was established, banks? management of cash and capital buffers was less responsive to network risk, suggesting that banks expected the Fed to reduce network risk. Because the Fed?s presence removed the incentives for the most systemically important banks to maintain capital and cash buffers that had protected against liquidity ...
Working Papers , Paper 2019-001

Journal Article
A New Daily Federal Funds Rate Series and History of the Federal Funds Market, 1928-54
Wheelock, David C.; Hanes, Christopher; Anbil, Sriya; Carlson, Mark A. (2021-01-14)
This article describes the origins and development of the federal funds market from its inception in the 1920s to the early 1950s. We present a newly digitized daily data series on the federal funds rate from April 1928 through June 1954. We compare the behavior of the funds rate with other money market interest rates and the Federal Reserve discount rate. Our federal funds rate series will enhance the ability of researchers to study an eventful period in U.S. financial history and better understand how monetary policy was transmitted to banking and financial markets. For the 1920s-30s, our ...
Review , Volume 103 , Issue 1 , Pages 45-70

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