Unit 4 -- Savings, Money and Financial Markets, Monetary Policy

• Money and the Federal Reserve

  • Definitions: Saving and Investment
  • Definitions: Money and the Federal Reserve
  • Textbook Problems on the Money Supply
  • Textbook Problems on the Money Supply and the Federal Reserve

  • Wikipedia - Bitcoin
  • Financial Times - Bitcoin Click on the Bitcoinmania link on the top to get a chronological list of articles on Bitcoin. The items by Isabella Kaminska are especially good.
  • Personal Finance for Dictators: Where to Stash the Cash by Graham Bowley, New York Times, March 13, 2011.
    The limitations of money as a store of value.
  • The Island of Stone Money
    From the NPR Planet Money program. WIth a link to Milton Friedman's article on Yap.
  • Yapping About Money: The Stone Money of Yap. by Mark Thoma,
    who provides a link to the Cleveland Fed article, Island Money, by Michael F. Bryan.
  • The Economic Organization of a P.O.W. Camp by R.A. Radford, Economica, 12:48(Nov.1945), pp. 189-201.
  • The End of the Credit Card? by Farhad Manjoo, Slate, Nov. 2,2011. Is Money Necessary?
    

  • Monetary Statistics
    • Money Stock Measures
    • Aggregate Reserves and the Monetary Base
    • Assets and Liabilities of Commercial Banks

• Monetary Policy

  • How the Fed Let the World Blow Up in 2008 by Matthew O'Brien, The Atlantic , Feb. 26, 2014

  • Powerpoints on Monetary Policy

  • Five Myths about the Fed by Greg Ip.
    Very good summary of quantitative easing. This is an assigned reading.

  • On Milton Friedman's 90th Birthday by Ben Bernanke. Speech at Confernce to Honor Milton Friedman, Nov. 2002.

  • Who Was Milton Friedman? by Paul Krugman, New York Review of Books, Feb. 15, 2007. An overview of Friedman's work by a Keynesian critic.

  • Answering the Bunnies by James Hamilton, Econbrowser.com. Click on the links in the post to hear the bunnies discuss quantitaive easing, and note that at the end of the post there is a link to another pair of bunnies who agree more with Prof. Hamilton.

  • Baby-Sitting the Economy by Paul Krugman. How expanding the money supply can stimulate the economy. (A PDF file is available on the website of Peter K. Schott. The Wikipedia entry on the "Capitol Hill Baby-Sitting Coop" gives alternative views.

  • What the Fed Did, and Why Ben Bernanke explains quantitative easing in an editorial in the Washington Post , Nov. 5, 2010.
  • Rebalancing the Global Recovery Speech by Ben Bernanke on international monetary aspects of the crisis. Nov. 19, 2010.
  • Emerging from the Crisis: Where Do We Stand? Bernanke on the recovery phase, Nov. 19, 2010.
  • Monetary Policy Objectives and Tools in a Low-Inflation Environment , Ben Bernanke, Chairman, Federal Reserve Board of Governors. October 15, 2010.

  • Fed Papers Show Breadth of Emergency Measures by Sewell Chan and Jo Craven McGinty, New York Times, Dec. 1, 2010.
    Details on the Fed action during the crisis of 2008-9.

    Policy tools of the Fed:

    • Federal Funds
    • Discount Window Borrowing
    • Recent Changes to Fed Lending. See also Chart of Fed Lending
    • Open Market Account and Open Market Operations
    • Estimation of Yields on Treasury Securities
    • Treasury Auctions
    
    Other activities of the Fed:
    • Seasonal Borrowing
    • The Key to the Gold Vault and Currency Destruction
    • CHIPS and Fedwire
    • Federal Reserve and Foreign Exchange and Exchange Stabilization Fund
    • Bank for International Settlements , Other Central Banks and Foreign Banks

  • Federal Reserve Policies in the Financial Crisis Speech by Ben Bernanke, Dec. 1, 2008. Clear summary of the actions of the Fed in responding to the crisis -- print and study carefully. Other relevant links to recent policy changes:
    • JP Morgan sees Fed cutting rates to zero in January Reuters, Dec. 1, 2008.
      See also The Humbling of the Fed by Paul Krugman, NY Times , Sept. 22, 2008.More technical is Thinking about the Liquidity Trap by Paul Krugman, Working Paper, MIT, Dec. 1999. And Monetary Policy in Deflation: The Liquidity Trap in History and Practice by Athanasios Orphanides, Fed. Reserve working paper, Dec. 2003 is also interesting.
    • Term Auction Facility Introduced Dec. 12, 2007 to provide longer-term (24 or 84-days) loans than the discount window; became the principal instrument of monetary policy in 2008. See Understanding Fed Lending from the New York Fed for a fuller explanation.
    • Interest on reserve balances Announced 6 Oct. 2008; referenced in Bernanke's speech above.
      See FAQs on interest on reserves for why this is a good idea.
    
    Not in textbooks, but in

• Financial Markets and Capital Flows
  • Answers to Chapter exercises
  • NYSE data
  • IPO data (Hoover's)
    The IPO Scorecard gives aggregate figures and list of best performers.
  • Bond Markets
  • Bond ratings of countries and of states of the US. Note that California's bond rating is exactly the same as Libya's -- they can both pay if they want to.
  • Bond Market -- Current trades
  • Treasury Bills (3 months) -- last auction