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Working Paper
More Stories of Unconventional Monetary Policy
This article extends the work of Fawley and Neely (2013) to describe how major central banks have evolved unconventional monetary policies to encourage real activity and maintain stable inflation rates from 2013 through 2019. By 2013, central banks were moving from lump-sum asset purchase programs to continuing asset purchase programs, which are conditioned on economic conditions, careful communication strategies, bank lending programs with incentives and negative interest rates. This article reviews how central banks tailored their unconventional monetary methods to their various challenges ...
Working Paper
Death of a Reserve Currency
The Dutch bank florin was the dominant currency in Europe during much of the 17th and 18th centuries. The florin, a fiat money, was managed by an early central bank, the Bank of Amsterdam. Using a new reconstruction of the Bank of Amsterdam's balance sheet, we analyze the florin's loss of reserve currency status during the period 1781?92. The reconstruction shows that by 1784, accommodative policies rendered the Bank of Amsterdam "policy insolvent," meaning that its net worth would have been negative under continuation of its policy objectives. Policy insolvency coincided with the Bank of ...
Unleashing Hamilton’s Financial Revolution
The federal government’s assumption of Revolutionary War debt was part of what historians now describe as Hamilton’s financial revolution.
Journal Article
More Stories of Unconventional Monetary Policy
This article extends the work of Fawley and Neely (2013) to describe how major central banks have evolved unconventional monetary policies to encourage real activity and maintain stable inflation rates from 2013 through 2019. By 2013, central banks were moving from lump-sum asset purchase programs to open-ended asset purchase programs, which are conditioned on economic conditions, careful communication strategies, bank lending programs with incentives, and negative interest rates. This article reviews how central banks tailored their unconventional monetary methods to their various challenges ...
Briefing
Does the Fed Have a Financial Stability Mandate?
Governments around the world have devoted increasing attention to maintaining overall financial system stability. Central banks play strong roles in domestic financial stability policy, but the full scopes of their financial stability mandates are ambiguous. The Federal Reserve appeared to embrace a stronger role in financial system stability starting in the late 1960s and accelerating with its unprecedented actions during the 2007?08 financial crisis. Questions remain, however, about the proper scope and design of a central bank?s financial stability mandate.
Speech
A Solution to Every Puzzle
Remarks at the 2020 U.S. Treasury Market Conference (delivered via videoconference).
Working Paper
Why Do We Need Both Liquidity Regulations and a Lender of Last Resort? A Perspective from Federal Reserve Lending during the 2007-09 U.S. Financial Crisis
During the 2007-09 financial crisis, there were severe reductions in the liquidity of financial markets, runs on the shadow banking system, and destabilizing defaults and near-defaults of major financial institutions. In response, the Federal Reserve, in its role as lender of last resort (LOLR), injected extraordinary amounts of liquidity. In the aftermath, lawmakers and regulators have taken steps to reduce the likelihood that such lending would be required in the future, including the introduction of liquidity regulations. These changes were motivated in part by the argument that central ...
Speech
The Outlook for the Economy and Monetary Policy: Low-Frequency Policymaking in a High-Frequency World
Good afternoon. I thank Ellen Zentner and the New York Association for Business Economics for the invitation to speak to you today. I believe that one of the important responsibilities of a Federal Reserve policymaker is to share his or her economic perspectives with the public. Congress has wisely given the Fed independence in making monetary policy decisions in pursuit of our statutory goals of price stability and maximum employment. I say "wisely" because a body of research and practical experience both here and abroad show that when central banks formulate monetary policy free from ...
Working Paper
Allan Meltzer: How He Underestimated His Own Contribution to the Modern Concept of a Central Bank
In his great work A History of the Federal Reserve System, vol. 1, Allan Meltzer contended that monetary policymakers in the Depression simply ignored the quantity theoretic prescriptions that would have prevented contractionary monetary policy. Practically, he was arguing that the Fed should have accepted the responsibilities for economic stabilization now taken for granted with the modern concept of a central bank. In reality, decades of monetarist criticism had to pass before the Fed accepted both responsibility for the behavior of the price level and economic stabilization. In effect, ...
Speech
Recent Global Developments and Central Bank Responsibilities in a Changing Risk Landscape
Remarks at the Official Sector Service Providers (OSSP)-Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM)-South East Asian Central Banks (SEACEN) Research and Training Centre Forum on Central Bank Foreign Currency Operations.