The Federal Open Market Committee has recently attempted to stimulate economic growth using unconventional methods. Prominent among these is quantitative easing (QE)—the purchase of a large quantity of longer-term debt on the assumption that it will reduce long-term yields through the...

This article is based on the author’s Homer Jones Memorial Lecture delivered at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, April 2, 2014.

The essence of quantitative easing (QE) is reducing the cost of private borrowing through large-scale purchases of privately issued debt instead of public debt (Bernanke, 2009). Regardless of how effective this highly unconventional monetary policy may be in reviving private investment and the...

This article describes the joint evolution of Federal Reserve policy and the study of the impact of monetary policy surprises on high-frequency asset prices. Since the 1970s, the Federal Open Market Committee has clarified its objectives and modified its procedures to become more transparent and...

Monetary policy choices going forward are explicitly tied to labor market performance. Hence, the sharp decline in the labor force participation rate following the 2007-09 recession has become a salient topic.