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The Federal Reserve has five key functions to help promote a strong economy: Conducting monetary policy: The U.S. central bank’s most well-known function. Monetary policy primarily refers to the ...
Therefore, although monetary policy makers will eventually be able to offset the effects that adverse demand shocks have on the economy, it will be some time before the shock is fully recognized and—given the lag between a policy action and the effect of the action on aggregate demand—an even longer time before it is countered.
The seven-member Board of Governors is the main governing body of the Federal Reserve System. It is charged with overseeing the 12 District Reserve Banks and with helping implement national monetary policy. Governors are appointed by the president of the United States and confirmed by the Senate for staggered, 14-year terms. [22]
The different types of policy are also called monetary regimes, in parallel to exchange-rate regimes. A fixed exchange rate is also an exchange-rate regime. The gold standard results in a relatively fixed regime towards the currency of other countries following a gold standard and a floating regime towards those that are not.
The Federal Reserve System (often shortened to the Federal Reserve, or simply the Fed) 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 (particularly the panic of 1907) led to the desire for central control of the monetary system in order to alleviate financial crises.
Numerous governments have opted to make central banks independent. The economic logic behind central bank independence is that when governments delegate monetary policy to an independent central bank (with an anti-inflationary purpose) and away from elected politicians, monetary policy will not reflect the interests of the politicians.
The FOMC is the principal organ of United States national monetary policy. The Committee sets monetary policy by specifying the short-term objective for the Fed's open market operations, which is usually a target level for the federal funds rate (the rate that commercial banks charge between themselves for overnight loans).
Monetary policy can be either expansive for the economy (short-term rates low relative to the inflation rate) or restrictive for the economy (short-term rates high relative to the inflation rate). Historically, the major objective of monetary policy had been to use these policy instruments to manage or curb domestic inflation.