The Monetary Policy of the Federal Reserve: A History

ISBN-13: 9780521881326 / Angielski / Twarda / 2008 / 408 str.

Robert L. Hetzel

Opis

The Monetary Policy of the Federal Reserve details the evolution of the monetary standard from the start of the Federal Reserve through the end of the Greenspan era. The book places that evolution in the context of the intellectual and political environment of the time. By understanding the fitful process of replacing a gold standard with a paper money standard, the conduct of monetary policy becomes a series of experiments useful for understanding the fundamental issues concerning money and prices. How did the recurrent monetary instability of the 20th century relate to the economic instability and to the associated political and social turbulence? After the detour in policy represented by FOMC chairmen Arthur Burns and G. William Miller, Paul Volcker and Alan Greenspan established the monetary standard originally foreshadowed by William McChesney Martin, who became chairman in 1951. Monetary Policy explains in a straightforward way the emergence and nature of the modern, inflation-targeting central bank.

Recenzje

'The Monetary Policy of the Federal Reserve: A History by Robert Hetzel studies the evolution of monetary policy from the beginning of the Federal Reserve until the end of the Greenspan Era. The title claims the book is a history, and it is that, but it is much more. As a history, Hetzel's book details the conduct of monetary policy over nearly ninety years, and sets that conduct in the context of the intellectual and political environment of the time. As an economic synthesis, Hetzel's book views the evolution of monetary policies as a series of experiments useful for understanding fundamental issues concerning money, prices, and macroeconomic policy. The past serves as a laboratory for understanding the present. The emergence of modern monetary policy and prospects for our nation's financial future are understood by studying the learning-curve of the leaders of the Federal Reserve, the painful process of replacing the gold standard with a fiat money standard, and the recurrent monetary instability during the decades following the Second World War.' Gary Richardson, University of California in Irvine

Spis treści

Foreword: what is the monetary standard?; 1. The pragmatic evolution of the monetary standard; 2. Learning and policy ambiguity; 3. From gold to fiat money; 4. From World War II to the Accord; 5. Martin and lean-against-the-wind; 6. Inflation is a nonmonetary phenomenon; 7. The start of the great inflation; 8. Arthur Burns and Richard Nixon; 9. Bretton Woods; 10. Policy in the Ford administration; 11. Carter, Burns, and Miller; 12. The political economy of inflation; 13. The Volcker disinflation; 14. Monetary policy after the disinflation; 15. Greenspan's move to price stability; 16. International bailouts and moral hazard; 17. Monetary policy becomes expansionary; 18. Departing from the standard procedures; 19. Boom and bust; 20. Backing off from price stability; 21. The Volcker–Greenspan regime; 22. The Fed: inflation fighter or inflation creator?; 23. The stop-go laboratory; 24. Stop-go and interest rate inertia; 25. Monetary nonneutrality in the stop-go era; 26. A century of monetary experiments.