The Federal Reserve is said to have a dual mandate of price stability and full employment. While the Fed has mentioned price stability as one of its primary goals, it has been reluctant to mention employment as a separate policy objective, preferring instead to state that maximum employment...

In 1998 the European Central Bank (ECB) became the world’s 173rd central bank. The Eurosystem, with its structure of national central banks and the ECB, is similar to the Federal Reserve System, with its District Banks and Board of Governors. However, important differences exist in the way the...

This article was originally presented as a speech at the Dyer County Chamber of Commerce Annual Membership Luncheon, Dyersburg, Tennessee, August 31, 2006.

In 1913, Congress purposefully created the Federal Reserve as an independent central bank, which created a fundamental tension: how to ensure the Fed remains accountable to the electorate without losing its independence. Over the years, there have been changes in the Fed’s structure to improve...

This paper investigates the effectiveness of one of the Federal Reserve’s unconventional monetary policy tools, the term auction facility (TAF). At issue is whether the TAF reduced the spread between the London interbank offered rate (LIBOR) rates and equivalent-term Treasury rates by reducing...

Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) projections are important because they provide information for evaluating current monetary policy intentions and because they indicate what FOMC members think will be the likely consequence of their policies. Knowing the Fed’s objectives, their forecasts,...