The founding of the Federal Reserve System in 1914 led to a substantial change in the behavior of nominal interest rates. We examine the timing of this change and the speed with which it was effected. We then use data on the term structure of interest rates to determine how expectations...

This paper evaluates the role of the destruction of the gold standard and the founding of the Federal Reserve, both of which occurred in 1914, in contributing to observed changes in the behavior of interest rates and prices after 1914. The paper presents a model of policy coordination in which...

We examine the creation of Social Security during the Great Depression, and how it has evolved since, asking in particular to what extent the program as it exists today is the same as that created in 1935 and 1939. We find that there has been surprising continuity. Much of the program's growth...

This paper examines changes over time in the importance of the lending channel in the transmission of monetary shocks to the real economy. We first use a simple extension of the Bernanke-Blinder model to isolate the observable factors that affect the strength of the lending channel. We then show...