An Introduction to US Monetary Policy

This study examines the history and operation of the Federal Reserve System (“the Fed”). It explores the Fed’s origins in American economic history and emphasizes the political compromises that produced it. It seeks to provide an accessible explanation of how the Fed attempts to change the money supply and of the structural challenges it faces as it attempts to get the money supply correct. The paper uses the framework thereby developed to examine recent monetary policy, including quantitative easing. Inflation and deflation result when the Fed creates too much or too little money, and the study discusses the causes and costs of both in detail. The paper concludes with an examination of alternatives to central banking, including the gold standard and a system of competition in money production known as free banking.