Keynote Speech: Federal Reserve Policy in the Post-Crisis Period

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) engaged in a series of extraordinary monetary policy actions in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis of 2007–2008 to support economic activity in the United States. Interest rates were lowered to their effective lower bound and the Fed’s balance sheet was greatly expanded through a series of large-scale asset purchase programs. As the U.S. economy has recovered, “normalization” of monetary policy (which will be data-dependent) has drawn closer. This article reviews some factors that may impact the post-normalization course of monetary policy.