The Federal Reserve System is the central banking system of the United States. It was created on December 23,1913,with the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act,after a series of financial panics led to the desire for central control of the monetary system in order to alleviate financial crises. Over the years,events such as the Great Depression in the 1930s and the Great Recession during the 2000s have led to the expansion of the roles and responsibilities of the Federal Reserve System.
The monetary policy of the United States is the set of policies which the Federal Reserve follows to achieve its twin objectives of high employment and stable inflation.
Paul Adolph Volcker Jr. was an American economist who served as the 12th chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1979 to 1987. During his tenure as chairman,Volcker was widely credited with having ended the high levels of inflation seen in the United States throughout the 1970s and early 1980s,with measures known as the Volcker shock. He previously served as the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York from 1975 to 1979.
The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) is a committee within the Federal Reserve System that is charged under United States law with overseeing the nation's open market operations. This Federal Reserve committee makes key decisions about interest rates and the growth of the United States money supply. Under the terms of the original Federal Reserve Act,each of the Federal Reserve banks was authorized to buy and sell in the open market bonds and short term obligations of the United States Government,bank acceptances,cable transfers,and bills of exchange. Hence,the reserve banks were at times bidding against each other in the open market. In 1922,an informal committee was established to execute purchases and sales. The Banking Act of 1933 formed an official FOMC.
George William Miller was an American businessman and investment banker who served as the 65th United States secretary of the treasury from 1979 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party,he also served as the 11th chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1978 to 1979. Miller was the first person to hold both of those posts.
William McChesney Martin Jr. was an American business executive who served as the 9th chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1951 to 1970,making him the longest holder of that position. He was nominated to the post by President Harry S. Truman and reappointed by four of his successors. Martin,who once considered becoming a Presbyterian minister,was described by a Washington journalist as "the happy Puritan".
The Federal Reserve System,commonly known as "the Fed," has faced various criticisms since its establishment in 1913. Critics have questioned its effectiveness in managing inflation,regulating the banking system,and stabilizing the economy. Notable critics include Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman and his fellow monetarist Anna Schwartz,who argued that the Fed's policies exacerbated the Great Depression. More recently,former Congressman Ron Paul has advocated for the abolition of the Fed and a return to a gold standard.
Ben Shalom Bernanke is an American economist who served as the 14th chairman of the Federal Reserve from 2006 to 2014. After leaving the Federal Reserve,he was appointed a distinguished fellow at the Brookings Institution. During his tenure as chairman,Bernanke oversaw the Federal Reserve's response to the 2007–2008 financial crisis,for which he was named the 2009 Time Person of the Year. Before becoming Federal Reserve chairman,Bernanke was a tenured professor at Princeton University and chaired the Department of Economics there from 1996 to September 2002,when he went on public service leave. Bernanke was awarded the 2022 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences,jointly with Douglas Diamond and Philip H. Dybvig,"for research on banks and financial crises",more specifically for his analysis of the Great Depression.
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York is one of the 12 Federal Reserve Banks of the United States. It is responsible for the Second District of the Federal Reserve System,which encompasses the State of New York,the 12 northern counties of New Jersey,Fairfield County in Connecticut,Puerto Rico,and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Located at 33 Liberty Street in Lower Manhattan,it is the largest,the most active,and the most influential of the Reserve Banks.
Edward Gerald Corrigan was an American banker who was the seventh President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and Vice-Chairman of the Federal Open Market Committee. Corrigan served as a partner and managing director in the Office of the Chairman at Goldman Sachs and was appointed chairman of GS Bank USA,the bank holding company of Goldman Sachs,in September 2008 until retiring in 2016. He was also a member of the Group of Thirty,an influential international body of leading financiers and academics.
Kevin Maxwell Warsh is an American financier and bank executive who served as a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors from 2006 to 2011.
Allan H. Meltzer was an American economist and Allan H. Meltzer Professor of Political Economy at Carnegie Mellon University's Tepper School of Business and Institute for Politics and Strategy in Pittsburgh,Pennsylvania. Meltzer specialized on studying monetary policy and the US Federal Reserve System,and authored several academic papers and books on the development and applications of monetary policy,and about the history of central banking in the US. Together with Karl Brunner,he created the Shadow Open Market Committee:a monetarist council that deeply criticized the Federal Open Market Committee.
The Shadow Open Market Committee (SOMC) is an independent group of economists,first organized in 1973 by Professors Karl Brunner,from the University of Rochester,and Allan Meltzer,from Carnegie Mellon University,to provide a monetarist alternative to the views on monetary policy and its inflation effects then prevailing at the Federal Reserve and within the economics profession.
William Poole was the eleventh chief executive of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. He took office on March 23,1998,and began serving his full term on March 1,2001. In 2007,he served as a voting member of the Federal Open Market Committee,bringing his District's perspective to policy discussions in Washington. Poole stepped down from the Fed on March 31,2008.
James Brian Bullard is the former chief executive officer and 12th president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis,a position he held from 2008 until August 14,2023. In July 2023,he was named dean of the Mitchell E. Daniels Jr. School of Business at Purdue University.
Timothy Franz Geithner is an American former central banker who served as the 75th United States Secretary of the Treasury under President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013. He was the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York from 2003 to 2009,following service in the Clinton administration. Since March 2014,he has served as president and chairman of Warburg Pincus,a private equity firm headquartered in New York City.
Vincent Raymond Reinhart is the Chief Economist for BNY Mellon Asset Management.
In monetary policy of the United States,the term Fedspeak is what Alan Blinder called "a turgid dialect of English" used by Federal Reserve Board chairs in making wordy,vague,and ambiguous statements. The strategy,which was used most prominently by Alan Greenspan,was used to prevent financial markets from overreacting to the chairman's remarks. The coinage is an intentional parallel to Newspeak.
Marvin Seth Goodfriend was an American economist. He held the Allan H. Meltzer Professorship in economics at Carnegie Mellon University;he was previously the director of research at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. Following his 2017 nomination to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors,the White House decided to forgo renominating Goodfriend at the beginning of the new term.
