Laws requiring banks to hold a volume of reserves equal to a prescribed fraction of their deposits originated in this country more than a century ago. Since then both the financial system and the rationales supporting reserve requirements have changed considerably. Nevertheless, the practice of...

To improve service and reduce costs, the 12 Federal Reserve Banks are consolidating their mainframe computer operations under Federal Reserve Automation Services, which operates mainframe computers at three sites.

As China's economy becomes more market based and continues its rapid integration into the global economy, having an independent and effective monetary policy regime oriented to domestic objectives will become increasingly important. Employing modern principles of monetary policy in light of the...

Independent central banking is reviewed as it emerged first under the gold standard and later with an inconvertible paper money. Monetary and credit policy are compared and contrasted as practiced by the 19th century Bank of England and the Federal Reserve. The lesson is that wide operational...

Money markets offer monetary services and short-term finance in the capital market with the credit support of institutional sponsors. Investors finance money market instruments at low interest because their salability on short notice confers an implicit monetary services yield. Low interest...

The paper identifies and evaluates consequences for monetary policy of five features of East Asian development: export orientation, integrated regional trade, bank-dependent finance, the potential for persistent trade surpluses, and the aggressive accumulation of international reserves. The case...