The Origins, History, and Future of the Federal Reserve

This book contains essays presented at a conference held in November 2010 to mark the centenary of the famous 1910 Jekyll Island meeting of leading American financiers and the US Treasury. The 1910 meeting resulted in the Aldrich Plan, a precursor to the Federal Reserve Act that was enacted by Congress in 1913. The 2010 conference, sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta and Rutgers University, featured assessments of the Fed's near 100-year track record by prominent economic historians and macroeconomists. The final chapter of the book records a panel discussion of Fed policy making by the current and former senior Federal Reserve officials. Advance praise: 'The 2010 Jekyll Island conference assembled preeminent scholars who have spent a lifetime studying central banking and the Federal Reserve. The historical perspective provided by these scholars offers continuing insights into the great issues confronting central banks. Not only students of central banking, but also general readers, will learn from this book.' Robert Hetzel, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, and author of The Great Recession Advance praise: 'As the Federal Reserve system approaches its 100-year anniversary in 2013, interest in reviewing and evaluating its history and performance increases. This volume includes seven papers and a larger number of commentaries presented at the 100th anniversary of an important conference held at Jekyll Island in Georgia in 1910 that contributed to the Fed's establishment. The papers by leading Federal Reserve and academic scholars are original contributions that discuss various aspects of the Fed's history and operations. They represent important reading for serious students of central banking.' George G. Kaufman, Loyola University, Chicago Advance praise: 'The conference on which this volume is based was a truly unusual event, one that deserves the label 'historic' in two senses. First, it marked the 100th anniversary of a meeting, also held on Jeykll Island, that was crucial in the founding of the Federal Reserve System. Second, the extent of attendance and participation by high-level U.S. monetary policy makers, together with leading academic and Federal Reserve economists, was unprecedented.' Bennett McCallum, Carnegie Mellon University Advance praise: 'If you want to understand financial crises, you have to understand the interplay between the central bank and the markets. And to understand how the linkages between the Fed and the financial markets have evolved and continue to change, I cannot think of a better source than this volume.' Andrew K. Rose, University of California, BerkeleyIntroduction Michael D. Bordo and William Roberds; 1. 'To establish a more effective supervision of banking': how the birth of the Fed altered bank supervision Eugene N. White; 2. Comment Warren Weber; 3. The promise and performance of the Federal Reserve as lender of last resort Michael D. Bordo and David C. Wheelock; 4. Comment Ellis Tallman; 5. Where it all began: lending of last resort and Bank of England monitoring during the Overend, Gurney panic of 1866 Marc Flandreau and Stefano Ugolini; 6. Comment Barry Eichengreen; 7. Volatile times and persistent conceptual errors: US monetary policy 1914-51 Charles W. Calomiris; 8. Comment Allan Meltzer; 9. Government, credit markets, and economic activity Lawrence Christiano and Daisuke Ikeda; 10. Policy debates at the FOMC: 1993-2002 Marvin Goodfriend; 11. Two models of land overvaluation and their implications Narayana Kocherlakota; 12. Panel discussion: Fed policymaking in practice Ben S. Bernanke, E. Gerald Corrigan and Alan Greenspan.