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Federal Reserve System

The central bank system of the United States. The Federal Reserve regulates the monetary policy of the United States, especially by setting the discount rate and the fed funds rate and by buying and selling U.S. Treasury securities. It consists of 12 regional banks that operate under the guidance of a Federal Reserve Board, whose seven members are appointed by the President of the United States. The Federal Reserve System has the authority to print money, a controversial measure both now and at the time it was founded. All federally-chartered banks must belong to the Federal Reserve System and purchase a certain amount of stock in the Federal Reserve bank in charge of their particular regions. The Federal Reserve System was established in 1913.

Fed

See Federal Reserve System.

Wall Street Words: An A to Z Guide to Investment Terms for Today's Investor by David L. Scott. Copyright © 2003 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. All rights reserved.

References in periodicals archive ?

It is at least plausible that other errors of similar magnitude exist in the Boston Fed's data along with numerous errors less obvious.

More generally, David Horne of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors reports that data errors of varying magnitudes were found by examiners in 58 percent of the applications actually denied but predicted by the Boston Fed's econometric model to be approved.

Evidence of discriminatory intent is not necessary to establish that a policy or practice adopted or implemented by a lender that has a disparate impact is in violation of the [FHA] or ECOA." This means that no criminal intent is necessary for violation of this law, according to the bureaucrats, and that discovery of violation is to be made through the use of subjective numerical games played by ideologues of the sort who have already shown themselves in the Boston Fed study to be pretty fast and loose with their analysis.

Cooked books

Yet in recent years, there has been excessive reliance on the Fed. All too frequently, analysts and observers opine "fiscal policy is dysfunctional so the Fed has to ease policy." This assumes that monetary policy and fiscal policy are two interchangeable levers.

The Fed deserves credit for its quantitative easing (QE) in 2008-09 that helped to restore financial stability and end the deep recession.

But the efficacy of the Fed's unprecedented monetary ease well after the economy had achieved sustainable growth and financial markets had stabilized--the dramatic expansion of its large-scale asset purchase programs (LSAPs) and targeting the Fed funds rate below inflation--is questionable, and the expanded scope of monetary policy involves substantial risks.