On October 6, 1979 the Federal Reserve, in an effort to improve monetary control, changed its operating procedures to give greater emphasis to managing the growth of bank reserves. Some movements in the federal funds rate under the new procedures were an automatic response to deviations of the...

Interest rates have reacted strongly to the monthly employment report in recent years. The authors document the reaction of rates to the report and provide evidence that it has been stronger since the mid-1980s than in earlier years. Evidently the report now has greater impact than formerly on...