...Monetary Policy in the United States: A Brave New World? Stephen D. Williamson This article is a reflection on monetary policy in the United States during Ben Bernanke’s two terms as Chairman of the Federal Open Market Committee, from 2006 to 2014. Inflation targeting, policy during the financial crisis, and post-crisis monetary policy (forward guidance and quantitative easing) are discussed and evaluated. (JEL E52, N12) Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review, Second Quarter 2014, 96(2), pp. 111-21. en Bernanke chaired his last Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting in January 2014 and departed from the Board of Governors on February 3 after eight years as the head of the Federal Reserve System. So, the time is right to look back on the Bernanke era and ask how central banking has and has not changed since 2006. There is plenty in the macroeconomic record from 2006 to 2014 to keep economists and policy analysts busy for many years, so in this short piece we can only scratch the surface of what is interesting about the Bernanke era. I will focus on three issues: (i) inflation targeting, (ii) Fed lending and other interventions during the financial crisis, and (iii) post-crisis Fed policy, in particular experiments with forward guidance and quantitative easing (QE). B INFLATION TARGETING When Bernanke began his first term in 2006, I think the big change people expected was an inflation-targeting regime for U.S. monetary policy, similar to what exists in New...
Words: 6247 - Pages: 25
...The Federal Reserve acquires its unique powers through its ability to issue money. Open your wallet or your purse and take a look at some bills. At the top, you will see the words “Federal Reserve Note.” In the past, many banks issued their own bank notes, which were used as money. But today the money we use in the United States is provided by just one bank, the Federal Reserve. Thus, the Federal Reserve has the power to create money—an awesome power that forms the centerpiece of this chapter. The Fed doesn’t have to literally print money. It can, as we shall see in more depth later in this chapter, also create money “by computer” by adding reserves to bank accounts held at the Fed. This new money can be given away or lent out in a way that increases aggregate demand. If the Federal Reserve is a bank, who are its customers? The Fed is both the government’s bank and the banker’s bank. As the government’s bank, the Fed maintains the bank account of the U.S. Treasury. When you write a check to the IRS to pay your taxes, the money ends up in the Treasury’s account at the Fed. In addition to receiving money, the U.S. Treasury also borrows a lot of money and the Fed manages this borrowing—that is, the Fed manages the issuing, transferring, and redeeming of U.S. Treasury bonds, bills, and notes. Since the U.S. Treasury is by far the world’s largest bank customer—it has more income and it also borrows more than any other bank customer—the Federal Reserve is a large and powerful bank...
Words: 9471 - Pages: 38
...INTRODUCTION TO MACROECONOMICS E202 $ ¥ Dr. David A. Dilts Department of Economics Doermer School of Business and Management Sciences Indiana-Purdue University-Fort Wayne June 1, 1993 Revisions: May 1994, December 1995, July 1996, November, 2000, May 2003, May 2006 PREFACE This Course Guide was developed in part because of the high cost of college textbooks, and in part, to help organize students’ studying by providing lecture notes together with the reading assignments. This Guide is provided to the student online at the Department of Economics website. Jayla Heller, the Department’s secretary has been kind enough to go through all of the frustration and hard work to put the guide in the appropriate format and put it online. To her goes my gratitude. The department, neither school, nor the professor make anything whatsoever from this Guide. In fact, the department’s budget and the professor’s own resources are used in the writing of the Guide, and the numerous draft copies that are produced in the revisions of this document. Like the sign in the Mom and Pop bait shop on Big Barbee Lake says, “This is a non-profit organization, wasn’t planned to be – it just worked out that way.” Well, actually it was planned to be a non-profit enterprise in this case. The professor also wishes to acknowledge the fact that several students have proposed changes, improvements, caught errors, and helped to make this document more useful as a learning tool. Naturally, any errors of omission...
Words: 56767 - Pages: 228
...Fall of the Dollar and the Future of the International Monetary System Barry Eichengreen Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works that further Oxford University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Copyright © 2011 by Barry Eichengreen Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Eichengreen, Barry J. Exorbitant privilege : The Rise and Fall of the Dollar and the Future of the International Monetary System / Barry Eichengreen. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-19-975378-9 1. Money—United States—History—20th century. 2. Devaluation of currency—United States—History—21st century. 3. United States—Economic policy—2009– 4. Financial crises—United States—21st century...
Words: 81879 - Pages: 328
...O C C A S I O N A L PA P E R S E R I E S N O 1 2 3 / F E B R UA RY 2 011 THE INTERNATIONAL MONETARY SYSTEM AFTER THE FINANCIAL CRISIS by Ettore Dorrucci and Julie McKay OCCASIONAL PAPER SERIES NO 123 / FEBRUARY 2011 THE INTERNATIONAL MONETARY SYSTEM AFTER THE FINANCIAL CRISIS by Ettore Dorrucci and Julie McKay1 NOTE: This Occasional Paper should not be reported as representing the views of the European Central Bank (ECB). The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the ECB. In 2011 all ECB publications feature a motif taken from the €100 banknote. This paper can be downloaded without charge from http://www.ecb.europa.eu or from the Social Science Research Network electronic library at http://ssrn.com/abstract_id=1646277 1 European Central Bank, Ettore.Dorrucci@ecb.europa.eu, Julie.McKay@ecb.europa.eu. The views expressed in this paper do not necessarily reflect those of the European Central Bank. The authors would like to thank, outside their institution, A. Afota, C. Borio, M. Committeri, B. Eichengreen, A. Erce, A. Gastaud, P. L'Hotelleire-Fallois Armas, P. Moreno, P. Sedlacek, Z. Szalai, I. Visco and J-P. Yanitch, and, within their institution, R. Beck, T. Bracke, A. Chudik, A. Mehl, E. Mileva, F. Moss, G. Pineau, F. Ramon-Ballester, L. Stracca, R. Straub, and C. Thimann for their very helpful comments and/or inputs. © European Central Bank, 2011 Address Kaiserstrasse 29 60311 Frankfurt am Main, Germany...
Words: 33129 - Pages: 133
...onoECONOMICS RESOURCE | 1 ECONOMICS RESOURCE | 1 ECONOMICS 2009-10: FUNDAMENTALS OF ECONOMIC THINKING Table of Contents Preface to the Economics Resource .................................................................................. 5 Fundamentals of Economics ............................................................................................ 7 The Basic Economic Problem—Scarcity ............................................................................................ 8 Production of Goods and Services .................................................................................................... 10 Increasing Costs ............................................................................................................................... 12 The Factors of Production ............................................................................................................... 14 Benefit-Cost Analysis – Marginal Decision-Making ......................................................................... 15 Marginal Utility and Waffles ............................................................................................................ 17 More on Marginal Utility and the Effect of Prices ............................................................................ 19 Individual and Social Goals .............................................................................................................. 20 Positive and Normative Economics...
Words: 65448 - Pages: 262
...economic recession in 2008.[2] The financial crisis was triggered by a complex interplay of valuation and liquidity problems in the United States banking system in 2008.[3][4] The bursting of the U.S. housing bubble, which peaked in 2007, caused the values of securities tied to U.S. real estate pricing to plummet, damaging financial institutions globally.[5][6] Questions regarding bank solvency, declines in credit availability and damaged investor confidence had an impact on global stock markets, where securities suffered large losses during 2008 and early 2009. Economies worldwide slowed during this period, as credit tightened and international trade declined.[7] Governments and central banks responded with unprecedented fiscal stimulus, monetary policy expansion and institutional bailouts. Although there have been aftershocks, the financial crisis itself ended sometime between late-2008 and mid-2009.[8][9][10] In the U.S. the government responded by a stimulus package and avoided a double-dip recession. In the E.U. the U.K. responded with austerity measures and it has since slid into a double-dip recession.[11] Many causes...
Words: 12476 - Pages: 50
...architecture. Today we will home in on a critical element of that ongoing discussion, the question of which exchange rate systems best promote global economic growth and stability. Page 2 PREV PAGE TOP OF DOC Until very recently, the issue of appropriate currency arrangements was missing in action from the official agenda for global reform. The existence of this gap presumably reflected the substantial divisions on this issue among economists and policymakers. In any regard, these divisions became manifest in the remarkable inconsistency of policy advice provided on exchange rates by the official financial community. As the IMF has acknowledged, the crises in Thailand, Indonesia, Korea, Russia and Brazil were all associated with exchange rate regimes that had been more or less fixed. In Asia in 1997, the fund urged cross-hit countries to devalue or float their currencies rather than squander precious reserves in a fruitless defense of an unsustainable rate. But in...
Words: 24837 - Pages: 100
...| The Abuse of Keynes’ Theory of Government Spending | And Why Government Spending Needs to Stop | | Chase Cooper | 12/13/2012 | Political Economy Dr.Ramos Abstract: The goal of my research paper is to analyze and present how John Maynard Keynes’ theory on government spending is being abused by the American government insofar that the American government is not following the guidelines and foundations that premised Keynes’ theory, and instead are picking the parts of the theory that allow them to spend at unsustainable levels, creating problems that, one way or another, eventually have to be resolved. My research will prove how the American government is conducting fiscal policy in a way that abuses Keynes’ theory on government spending, and, as a result, why Keynes would not support the American government in their spending endeavors, despite using his theory as their justification. I will be critiquing the application of Keynes’ theory from the Austrian, specifically the works of Friedrich A. Hayek, and Monetarist perspectives, supported by arguments given by Milton Friedman. Section 1: Keynes’ Theory on Government Spending John Maynard Keynes published his famous work, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, in 1936, during the Great Depression. Economies all over the world were suffering severely from the Great Depression, and there was little hope of economic recovery in the near future. Keynes agreed with the classical economist’s notion...
Words: 5554 - Pages: 23
...result of the forces of integration, international competition has become more fierce and firms are under increasing pressure to cut costs and differentiate their products to survive. Canada’s economy has numerous linkages beyond its borders, particularly with the United States. The future improvement of Canadians’ standard of living will depend in large part on foreign investment in Canada and the ability of Canadians to invest abroad. In this regard, a thriving financial sector will be a key component of our success. Canada has a small share of the global capital market. Thus, to be competitive, the Canadian capital market must be efficient and offer a low cost of capital. As much as possible, the policies and institutions that govern the Canadian financial sector should be harmonized to international standards. Made-in-Canada policies risk dampening or distorting international investment flows and should exist only where there is a demonstrable domestic imperative. Economists’ understanding of the role of financial systems as a driver of long-term economic growth has evolved considerably in recent years. Financial systems are recognized to...
Words: 9589 - Pages: 39
...Threat of fiscal dominance? A BIS/OECD workshop on policy interactions between fiscal policy, monetary policy and government debt management after the financial crisis Basel, 2 December 2011 Monetary and Economic Department May 2012 Papers in this volume were prepared for the joint BIS and OECD workshop on “Policy interaction: fiscal policy, monetary policy and government debt management”, held in Basel on 2 December 2011. The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the BIS or the central banks represented at the meeting. Individual papers (or excerpts thereof) may be reproduced or translated with the authorisation of the authors concerned. This publication is available on the BIS website (www.bis.org). © Bank for International Settlements 2012. All rights reserved. Brief excerpts may be reproduced or translated provided the source is stated. ISSN 1609-0381 (print) ISBN 92-9131-135-9 (print) ISSN 1682 7651 (online) ISBN 92-9197-135-9 (online) Preface The massive expansion of central bank balance sheets to contain the worst financial crisis in living memory raises questions about the theory and practice of monetary policy. The persistence in many advanced countries of large fiscal deficits and the prospect of high public debt/GDP ratios for many years is likely, at some point, to create policy dilemmas not only for central banks but also for public debt managers. Some countries have already had to cope with higher...
Words: 122666 - Pages: 491
...telephone and a satellite communication network, SWIFT. The term foreign exchange market is used to refer to the wholesale a segment of the market, where the dealings take place among the banks. The retail segment refers to the dealings take place between banks and their customers. The retail segment refers to the dealings take place between banks and their customers. The retail segment is situated at a large number of places. They can be considered not as foreign exchange markets, but as the counters of such markets. The leading foreign exchange market in India is Mumbai, Calcutta, Chennai and Delhi is other centers accounting for bulk of the exchange dealings in India. The policy of Reserve Bank has been to decentralize exchages operations and develop broader based exchange markets. As a result of the efforts of Reserve Bank Cochin, Bangalore, Ahmadabad and Goa have emerged as new centre of foreign exchange market. Size of the Market Foreign exchange market is the largest financial market with a daily turnover of over USD 2 trillion. Foreign exchange markets were primarily developed to facilitate settlement of debts arising out of international trade. But these markets have developed on their own so much so that a turnover of about 3 days in the foreign exchange market is equivalent to the magnitude of...
Words: 21097 - Pages: 85
...satellite communication network, SWIFT. The term foreign exchange market is used to refer to the wholesale a segment of the market, where the dealings take place among the banks. The retail segment refers to the dealings take place between banks and their customers. The retail segment refers to the dealings take place between banks and their customers. The retail segment is situated at a large number of places. They can be considered not as foreign exchange markets, but as the counters of such markets. The leading foreign exchange market in India is Mumbai, Calcutta, Chennai and Delhi is other centers accounting for bulk of the exchange dealings in India. The policy of Reserve Bank has been to decentralize exchages operations and develop broader based exchange markets. As a result of the efforts of Reserve Bank Cochin, Bangalore, Ahmadabad and Goa have emerged as new centre of foreign exchange market. Size of the Market Foreign exchange market is the largest financial market with a daily turnover of over USD 2 trillion. Foreign exchange markets were primarily developed to facilitate settlement of debts arising out of international trade. But these markets have developed on their own so much so that a turnover of about 3 days in the foreign exchange market is...
Words: 21098 - Pages: 85
...INTERNATIONAL FOREIGN EXCHANGE RESERVES BULGARIAN NATIONAL BANK Celebrating the BNB 130th Anniversary INTERNATIONAL FOREIGN EXCHANGE RESERVES Edited by Tsvetan Manchev, Doctor in Economics BULGARIAN NATIONAL BANK 2009 International Foreign Exchange Reserves Abbreviations BNB GDP BIS b.p. EIB EC EU ESCB ECB LBNB М1 М2 М3 IMF ERMII Fed − the Bulgarian National Bank − gross domestic product − the Bank for International Settlements − basis points − the European Investment Bank − the European Commission − the European Union − the European System of Central Banks − the European Central Bank − the Law on the Bulgarian National Bank − narrow money − М1 plus quasi money − broad money − the International Monetary Fund − Exchange Rate Mechanism II − the Federal Reserve System © The Bulgarian National Bank, 2009 © 2009 by Tsvetan Manchev et al. ISBN 978-954-8579-30-8 Published by the Bulgarian National Bank 1, Knyaz Alexander I Square 1000 Sofia telephone +359 2 9145-750 facsimile +359 2 980 2425, 980 6493 www.bnb.bg 2 International Foreign Exchange Reserves Contents Introduction ......................................................... 11 PART ONE. Chapter 1. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. THE THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS Nature and Function .......................................... 19 Definition ............................................................. 19 Gold as a Foreign Reserve Assets ...................... 20 Reasons to Own and Use Foreign Reserves ...... 23 The Functions...
Words: 55968 - Pages: 224
...RATING SYSTEM IN BANKING SUPERVISION A CASE STUDY Uyen Dang Arcada University of Applied Sciences International Business 2011 DEGREE THESIS Arcada Degree Programme: Identification number: Author: Title: Supervisor (Arcada): Commissioned by: Abstract: International Business 10312 Uyen Dang The CAMEL rating system in banking supervision. A case study Andreas Stenius Banking supervision has been increasingly concerned due to significant loan losses and bank failures from the 1980s till now. In the light of the banking crisis in recent years worldwide, CAMEL is a useful tool to examine the safety and soundness of banks, and help mitigate the potential risks which may lead to bank failures. The research has been conducted as a case study of American International Assurance Vietnam (AIA). It aims to determine whether the CAMEL framework plays a crucial role in banking supervision. Furthermore, the purpose is to identify the benefits as well as drawbacks which the CAMEL system brings to AIA. The research problem was explored by quantitatively analyzing a bank’s overall performance. The paper firstly starts to collect theory relevant to the empirical research, and then draws conclusions from the findings by relating them back to the literature stated in the early stage. Although this study is based on collected data and numerical figures, it is a qualitative study. The findings revealed that CAMEL rating system is a useful supervisory tool in the U.S. CAMEL analysis approach...
Words: 12113 - Pages: 49
