The Federal Reserve System, created in the early 20th century, is now more than a hundred years old. This book takes the reader through the founding and first century of Federal Reserve monetary policy, and uses the analysis of the past to address the present and future issues of central banking.
With its focus on the actual policies, rather than the politics or individuals that determined those policies, this book addresses issues that have plagued monetarists since the onset of the Great Recession. Then, it proceeds to discuss the issues that will affect the efficacy of policy in the future. This section of the book is relevant for all central banks as central bank behavior post the onset of the Great Recession was similar throughout the world.
The book presents an analysis of the path of inflation that puzzled the experts. It adds an analysis of central banking's ability or lack thereof to influence market interest rates. Lastly, it explains the current exploding crypto-currency craze, its potential to supplant traditional transactions media, and the future of these so-called currencies.
Thomas R Saving is Director Emeritus, Private Enterprise Research Center and University Distinguished Professor of Economics Emeritus, Texas A&M University. He has been elected to the post of President of the Western Economics Association, the Southern Economics Association and the Association of Private Enterprise Education.
Saving received his PhD from the University of Chicago in 1960. Prior to joining the economics faculty at Texas A&M University in 1968, he was on the faculty at University of Washington in Seattle and Michigan State University. He attained the rank of full professor at Michigan State University in 1966, six years after the award of this Ph.D. in 1960.
In 2000, President Clinton appointed him as a Public Trustee of the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds. On May 2, 2001, President Bush named him to the bipartisan President's Commission to Strengthen Social Security. On April 19, 2006, President Bush appointed him to an unprecedented second term as a Public Trustee of the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds which expired in December 2007.
His early research was on Monetary Theory and Policy. During that time, he co-authored two books with fellow colleague Boris P Pesek, Money, Wealth and Economic Theory, Macmillan, 1967 and Foundations of Money and Banking, Macmillan, 1968, and published 20 monetary theory articles in major journals. After a period of research on the benefit of markets in solving the pressing issues in health care and Social Security when he was a co-editor of Medicare Reform: Issues and Answers, University of Chicago Press, 1999, the co-author of The Economics of Medicare Reform, W E Upjohn Institute, 2000 and The Diagnosis and Treatment of Medicare, AEI Press, 2007, he returned to his first love, monetary economics. He has served on the editorial board of the American Economic Review, the Journal of Money, Credit and Banking and was a co-editor of Economic Inquiry. He has published editorials in the New York Times, the LA Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal.
