POLITICS AND THE FEDERAL RESERVE

Evidence presented here supports a two-part hypothesis that (1) the Federal Reserve is a powerful political entity, not independent of politics, and (2) it preserves its political power by carrying out the monetary policy desired by the President of the United States. This evidence includes the historical record from the Truman to Reagan administrations, politicization of Federal Reserve research, and political lobbying by the Federal Reserve. Formerly secret minutes of the regional Federal Reserve Banks' boards of directors meetings provide source material. The conclusion suggests a more efficient method of translating political signals and a rule for more predictable monetary policy.     

Bank Influence and the Failure of US Monetary Policy during the 1953–54 Recession

This paper presents archival and econometric evidence that challenges the conventional belief that independent central banks are necessary to stabilise economies on non-inflationary growth paths. The evidence suggests that, when the US central bank—the Federal Reserve—became independent of democratic control in March 1951, it became dependent on the large banks. It is shown that excessive banker influence caused the Federal Reserve to miss its first opportunity to stabilise the economy, during the 1953–54 recession.     

Public debt,monetization and inflation: Evidence from the U.S. time series

This paper presents time series evidence based on vector autoregressive representations which strongly contradicts the hypothesis that larger real deficit induces the Federal Reserve to monetize it.     

Optimal versus realized policy rules in a regime-switching framework

In this paper we compare a deterministic model and a Markov switching model to analyze the behavior of the US economy and the Federal Reserve. We examine both optimal and empirical monetary policies for the US Federal Reserve between 1960 and 2008. We compare the optimal monetary policy to the actual interest rates and to the empirical reaction function. We also evaluate the sensitivity of the results to the preferences assigned to each objective. We find that there is no unique optimal solution that fits the Federal Reserve behavior over the entire period. The best fit to the actual interest rates is obtained by an optimal policy with preference switches following the rule: a high-volatility regime coincides with a priority on inflation alone while in a low-volatility regime there is equal policy priority on output stabilization and inflation.     

REFORMING THE FED: ITS INDEPENDENCE AND LESSONS FROM HUMPHREY-HAWKINS

The last session of Congress witnessed renewed calls for reforming the Federal Reserve System so as to better coordinate monetary and fiscal policies. This paper examines how the current institutional structure, established by the Humphrey-Hawkins Act of 1978, performed when the supply-side tax cuts were implemented during 1981 and 1982. The findings reveal that authorities barely discussed the necessary policy coordination at the Humphrey-Hawkins hearings. Further, the record reveals that Fed Chairman Volcker refused to utilize the Fed's independence to publicly oppose the supply-side tax cuts.     

A Reconsideration of Keynes' Finance Motive*

Keynes' finance motive is a much neglected part of monetary theory. This paper reassesses the meaning and importance of the finance motive and examines the distinction between it and the transactions motive. A specification of the demand function for money is proposed that takes account of the finance motive. The advantages of this specification for analytical and empirical purposes are explained. Finally, it is shown that this specification provides a satisfactory theoretical explanation for the evidence on timing between the real and monetary sectors; evidence thought by some to be inconsistent with Keynes' theory of liquidity preference.     

An experimental examination of the house money effect in a multi-period setting

There is evidence that risk-taking behavior is influenced by prior monetary gains and losses. When endowed with house money, people become more risk taking. This paper is the first to report a house money effect in a dynamic, financial setting. Using an experimental method, we compare market outcomes across sessions that differ in the level of cash endowment (low and high). Our experimental results provide support for a house money effect. Traders’ bids, price predictions, and market prices are influenced by the amount of money that is provided prior to trading. However, dynamic behavior is difficult to interpret due to conflicting influences. JEL Classification C91 · C92 · D80 The views expressed here are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta or the Federal Reserve System.     

THE FED AND THE POLITICAL BUSINESS CYCLE

This study asks whether the Federal Reserve has actively made monetary policy so as to aid the president's reelection. Using Shiller's smoothness "prior" to estimate the shape of cycles, the study finds a political business cycle in unemployment and a preelection increase in growth of the money supply. But the timing of these two cycles is inconsistent. Furthermore, little evidence exists of a cycle in the instruments of monetary policy. Thus, the Fed is not actively creating a political business cycle. Apparently, movements in real money that are not caused—but are not offset—by the Fed are an important cause of the political business cycle.
Elections influence Fed behavior. Monetary tightness occurs early in a presidential term, before reelection incentives become critical. This is due to the Fed's political weakness. Thus, the Fed's independence only partly insulates it from electoral pressures.     

THE FED AND THE POLITICAL BUSINESS CYCLE

This study asks whether the Federal Reserve has actively made monetary policy so as to aid the president's reelection. Using Shiller's smoothness "prior" to estimate the shape of cycles, the study finds a political business cycle in unemployment and a preelection increase in growth of the money supply. But the timing of these two cycles is inconsistent. Furthermore, little evidence exists of a cycle in the instruments of monetary policy. Thus, the Fed is not actively creating a political business cycle. Apparently, movements in real money that are not caused—but are not offset—by the Fed are an important cause of the political business cycle.
Elections influence Fed behavior. Monetary tightness occurs early in a presidential term, before reelection incentives become critical. This is due to the Fed's political weakness. Thus, the Fed's independence only partly insulates it from electoral pressures.     

Friction model and foreign exchange market intervention

The friction model is consistent with the hypothesis that a central bank intervenes in a foreign exchange market only if the necessity grows beyond certain thresholds. For this feature, the model is adopted in some recent studies as an attractive central bank reaction function. However, with official data on Federal Reserve and Bundesbank intervention, this paper shows that the friction model's advantage relative to a linear model may be negligible in terms of RMSE and MAE of in-sample fitting and out-of-sample forecasts. The implication is that intervention decisions are at the monetary authorities' discretion rather than dictated by a rule.     

Quantitative Easing Forever? Financialisation and the Institutional Legitimacy of the Federal Reserve’s Unconventional Monetary Policy

Scholars of financialisation have argued that the emergence of finance-led grow regimes requires new instruments for effective conduct of economic policy. In this scholarship, central banks have been seen as the most promising actors to utilise one of the most synergetic policies, the maintenance of high and stable prices of financial assets. Since the financial crisis of 2007–8, central banks of the developed world have adopted various unconventional monetary policy measures that serve this function. But will these unconventional measures become institutionally legitimate and institutionalised as conventional practice, as suggested necessary by scholars of financialisation? In this paper, we answer to this question by studying the institutional legitimation of the Federal Reserve’s Quantiative Easing (QE) programmes. We argue that the QE programmes have been legitimated successfully but with institutional legitimation strategies, which cause institutional pressures that question the potential of QE from becoming a regular policy instrument and practice.     

危机中美国定量宽松货币政策的实施效果——央行资产负债表的视角

金融危机爆发后,美联储采取定量宽松的货币政策。文章从央行资产负债表的视角,对定量宽松货币政策实施的背景、具体措施进行了阐述,并重点考察了定量宽松货币政策对央行资产、负债及其构成、货币政策决策的影响。研究表明,急剧膨胀的央行资产、大量投放的流动性必然造成将来通胀压力,定量宽松货币政策如何顺利退出,事关经济金融的稳定和货币政策的效果,也是央行在经济复苏阶段面临的新的课题。     

HOW SHOULD BANK REGULATORY AGENCIES BE ORGANIZED?

The U.S. Treasury Department (1991) makes a strong case for consolidating federal bank regulatory authority. However, its proposal to eliminate direct FDIC authority over insured nonmember banks contributes little to this end because deposit insurance requires supervisory oversight. The U.S. Treasury Department (1991) also maintains an independent role for the Federal Reserve. Elimination of neither the insurance agency nor the central bank appears practical. A better approach to regulatory agency consolidation would combine supervision with deposit insurance and central banking in an institutional structure modified somewhat from the present Federal Reserve structure.     

Noisy information, interest rate shocks and the Great Moderation

In this paper we evaluate the hypothesis that the Great Moderation is partly the result of a less activist monetary policy. We simulate a New Keynesian model in which the central bank can only observe a noisy estimate of the output gap and find that the less pronounced reaction of the Federal Reserve to output gap fluctuations since 1979 can account for a substantial part of the reduction in the standard deviation of GDP associated with the Great Moderation. Our simulations are consistent with the empirically documented smaller magnitude and impact of interest rate shocks since the early 1980s.     

An overhaul of Federal Reserve doctrine: Nominal income and the Great Moderation

The Great Moderation is often characterized by the decline in the variability of output and inflation from earlier periods. While a multitude of explanations for the Great Moderation exist, notable research has focused on the role of monetary policy. Specifically, early evidence suggested that this increased stability is the result of monetary policy that responded much more strongly to realized inflation. Recent evidence casts doubt on this change in monetary policy. An alternative hypothesis is that the change in monetary policy was the result of a change in doctrine; specifically the rejection of the view that inflation was largely a cost-push phenomenon. As a result, this alternative hypothesis suggests that the change in monetary policy beginning in 1979 is reflected in the Federal Reserve’s response to expectations of nominal income growth rather than realized inflation as previously argued. I provide evidence for this hypothesis by estimating the parameters of a monetary policy rule in which policy adjusts to forecasts of nominal GDP for the pre- and post-Volcker eras. Finally, I embed the rule in two dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models with gradual price adjustment to determine whether the overhaul of doctrine can explain the reduction in the volatility of inflation and the output gap.     

Monetary policy and long-term US interest rates

This paper assesses the effect of federal funds rate innovations on longer-term US nominal interest rates across different periods. The evidence suggests that these responses change with changes in the monetary policy regime. Time periods considered are pre- and post-1979 and different Federal Reserve Chairman’s tenure. The response of longer-term interest rates to federal funds rate innovations are shown to be smaller and less persistent in the post-1979 period when the Federal Reserve placed more emphasis on inflation.     

A MANDATE OF PRICE STABILITY FOR THE FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM

In recent years, the rules-versus-discretion debate over monetary policy has taken on new life. In the 1960s, this debate focused on the relative merits of nonactivist policies versus activist stabilization policies. When rational expectations arguments emerged in the 1970s, the debate broadened into three categories: activist policies characterized by rules, activist policies characterized by discretion, and nonactivist policies characterized by rules. This paper presents arguments for a particular example of the latter of these policies…specifically, a monetary policy which accords preeminence to achieving price-level stability. Central to these arguments is a comparison of this hypothetical policy with the actual monetary policy pursued by the Federal Reserve System, which is a type of activist policy characterized by discretion. The comparison suggests that actual monetary policy is more constrained than is generally realized. A rule mandating that the Federal Reserve accord preeminence to achieving price-level stability, then, should not be regarded as a policy which would significantly increase constraints on monetary policy. Instead, such a rule should be regarded as replacing implicit, poorly understood constraints with explicit constraints.     

Transparent US monetary policy: theory and tests

In 1994, the Federal Reserve System moved to a more transparent reporting of monetary policy. This article assesses the impact of monetary policy transparency on uncertainty about future monetary policy using T-bill rate forecast dispersions and ex post forecast errors from the Survey of Professional Forecasters as a proxy for monetary policy uncertainty. The empirical findings confirm that Federal Reserve transparency has reduced the uncertainty about future monetary policy.     

Taylor rules and the Great Inflation

Can US monetary policy in the 1970s be described by a stabilizing Taylor rule when policy is evaluated with real-time inflation and output gap data? Using economic research on the full employment level of unemployment and the natural rate of unemployment published between 1970 and 1977 to construct real-time output gap measures for periods of peak unemployment, we find that the Federal Reserve did not follow a Taylor rule if appropriate measures are used. We estimate Taylor rules and find no evidence that monetary policy stabilized inflation, even allowing for changes in the inflation target. While monetary policy was stabilizing with respect to inflation forecasts, the forecasts systematically under-predicted inflation following the 1970s recessions and this does not constitute evidence of stabilizing policy. We also find that the Federal Reserve responded too strongly to negative output gaps.     

The depression of 1920–1921: a credit induced boom and a market based recovery?

This paper examines the American post-WW1 boom and bust. It argues that the Federal Reserve’s monetary easing from 1919 to 1920 created an Austrian Business Cycle (ABC), or an unsustainable credit boom. The collapse of the boom initiated the Depression of 1920–1921. The subsequent laissez faire policy promoted a swift recovery. In particular, the natural recovery began following a severe liquidation of firms, reallocation of resources, and wage cuts stimulated by fiscal and monetary contraction. Contrary to some other accounts, we find that significant recovery began before the Federal Reserve’s 1921–1922 monetary easing affected the economy. We also address other criticisms of the credit-cycle interpretation.