The Federal Reserve: A New History"An ambitious history . . . [Hetzel's] book is a very important contribution to the literature on the history of U.S. monetary policy." ― EH.net In The Federal Reserve: A New History, Robert L. Hetzel draws on more than forty years of experience as an economist in the central bank to trace the influences of the Fed on the American economy. Comparing periods in which the Fed stabilized the economy to those when it did the opposite, Hetzel tells the story of a century-long pursuit of monetary rules capable of providing for economic stability. Recast through this lens and enriched with archival materials, Hetzel's sweeping history offers a new understanding of the bank's watershed moments since 1913. This includes critical accounts of the Great Depression, the Great Inflation, and the Great Recession—including how these disastrous events could have been avoided. A critical volume for a critical moment in financial history, The Federal Reserve is an expert, sweeping account that promises to recast our understanding of the central bank in its second century. "Hetzel's book skillfully traces out the Fed's uneven history. He carefully identifies and explains the reasons for the Fed's major failures and successes and he covers the most recent episodes—the financial crisis, Great Recession, and the COVID-19 crisis—in great detail. Hetzel's own intellectual framework provides valuable nuances, resulting in a unified view of Fed policy, before and after 1980, with reference to a single model." —Peter Ireland, Boston College |
Contents
| 1 | |
| 5 | |
| 15 | |
Chapter Four The Creation of the Fed | 27 |
The 1920s Antecedents | 42 |
Free Reserves Operating Procedures and Gold | 57 |
Chapter Seven A Narrative Account of the 1920s | 81 |
Chapter Eight Attacking Speculative Mania | 117 |
Chapter Eighteen StopGo and the Collapse of a Stable Nominal Anchor | 381 |
Chapter Nineteen The Volcker Fed and the Birth of a New Monetary Standard | 402 |
Chapter Twenty The Green span FOMC | 424 |
Chapter TwentyOne The Great Recession | 445 |
Chapter TwentyTwo The 2008 Financial Crisis | 471 |
Chapter TwentyThree The Eurozone Crisis | 507 |
Chapter TwentyFour Recovery from the Great Recession | 527 |
Chapter TwentyFive Covid19 and the Feds Credit Policy | 550 |
192933 | 142 |
Chapter Ten The Roosevelt Era | 193 |
Chapter Eleven The Guiding Role of Governor Harrison and the NY Fed | 226 |
Chapter Twelve Contemporary Critics in the Depression | 262 |
Chapter Thirteen From World War II to the 1953 Recession | 298 |
Chapter Fourteen LAW LeanagainsttheWind and Long and Variable Lags | 321 |
Chapter Fifteen The Early Martin Fed | 337 |
Chapter Sixteen From Price Stability to Inflation | 349 |
Chapter Seventeen The Burns Fed | 365 |
FlexibleAverageInflation Targeting | 584 |
Chapter TwentySeven How Can the Fed Control Inflation? | 595 |
Chapter TwentyEight Making the Monetary Standard Explicit | 606 |
Chapter TwentyNine What Is the Optimal Monetary Standard? | 625 |
Chapter Thirty Why Is Learning So Hard? | 636 |
Acknowledgments | 639 |
Bibliography | 641 |
| 671 | |