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Journal Article
Free enterprise and central banking in formerly communist countries
According to this article, if the formerly Communist countries of Eastern Europe are to become free market economies, they will have to define and enforce property rights and allow prices to signal supply and demand conditions. Further, the article suggests that the market economy and integration into the world economy would be enhanced by adopting the currency of a large Western country, thereby eliminating the need for a central bank.
Journal Article
After the accord : reminiscences on the birth of the modern Fed
Working Paper
The formulation of monetary policy
The purpose of this paper is to elucidate the way in which current institutional arrangements shape the character of monetary policy. It is emphasized that the Fed, in order to preserve its independence, formulates monetary policy in a way that prevents the formation of coalitions within the government that could threaten its independence. As a consequence, the Fed, in general, attempts to balance multiple, changing objectives. This attempt leads to the demand for "flexibility," an absence of precommitment. Much of the paper is devoted to a discussion of the way in which the Fed's desire to ...
Briefing
Nominal GDP: Target or Benchmark?
Some observers have argued that the Federal Reserve would best fulfill its mandate by adopting a target for nominal gross domestic product (GDP). Insights from the monetarist tradition suggest that nominal GDP targeting could be destabilizing. However, adopting benchmarks for both nominal and real GDP could offer useful information about when monetary policy is too tight or too loose.
Journal Article
The Real Bills Views of the Founders of the Fed
The founders of the Federal Reserve desired to end financial panics. In order to achieve this end, they created a decentralized collection of reserve depositories ? the Federal Reserve banks. They also wanted to remove control of the financial system from Wall Street. At the time, policymakers understood financial panics as resulting from speculative excess, especially on Wall Street. These "real bills" views of financial panic originated in the 19th century American experience. They influenced monetary policy significantly until the post-World War II period.
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, ...
Journal Article
The relationship between money and expenditure in 1982
An abstract for this article is not available.
Journal Article
A quantity theory framework for monetary policy
Journal Article
The October 1979 regime of monetary control and the behavior of the money supply in 1980
An abstract for this article is not available.