21st Century Monetary Policy takes readers inside the Federal Reserve, explaining what it does and why. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Federal Reserve deployed an extraordinary range of policy tools that helped prevent the collapse of the financial system and the U.S. economy. Chair Jerome Powell and his colleagues lent directly to U.S. businesses, purchased trillions of dollars of government securities, pumped dollars into the international financial system, and crafted a new framework for monetary policy that emphasized job creation. These strategies would have astonished Powell’s late-20th-century predecessors, from William McChesney Martin to Alan Greenspan, and the advent of these tools raises new questions about the future landscape of economic policy. In 21st Century Monetary Policy, Ben S. Bernanke—former chair of the Federal Reserve and one of the world’s leading economists—explains the Fed’s evolution and speculates on its future. Taking a fresh look at the bank’s policymaking over the past seventy years, including his own time as chair, Bernanke shows how changes in the economy have driven the Fed’s innovations. He also lays out new challenges confronting the Fed, including the return of inflation, cryptocurrencies, increased risks of financial instability, and threats to its independence. Beyond explaining the central bank’s new policymaking tools, Bernanke also captures the drama of moments when so much hung on the Fed’s decisions, as well as the personalities and philosophies of those who led the institution.

We study the macroeconomic effects of the COVID-19 epidemic in a quantitative dynamic general equilibrium setup with nominal rigidities. We evaluate various containment policies and show that they allow to dramatically reduce the welfare cost of the disease. Then we investigate the role that monetary policy, in its capacity to manage aggregate demand, should play during the epidemic. According to our results, treating the observed output contraction as a standard recession leads to overly expansionary policy. Finally, we check how central banks should resolve the trade-off between stabilizing the economy and containing the epidemic. If no administrative restrictions are in place, the second motive prevails and, despite the deep recession, optimal monetary policy is in fact contractionary. Conversely, if sufficient containment measures are introduced, central bank interventions should be expansionary and help stabilize economic activity.

The book makes an effort in investigating the present and future developments in the financial system, after the COVID-19 Pandemic. The effects of health issues and epidemic diseases influencing the country economies and expected to influence to effect in the future in terms of banking sector especially Central Banking will be discussed. People who take this work will be able to look at events from different windows about money, banking, Central Banks, historical transformation of the banking sector and the relations among the entire financial system and policy makers and also their current issues.

This book offers an assessment of the different monetary and fiscal policy responses that have been implemented by national governments in major European and Asian countries faced with the Covid-19 crisis since 2020; it also deals with the case of the US experience as a benchmarking example. The book provides a comprehensive cross-country comparative study on health crisis management at the macroeconomic level. Its focus on monetary and fiscal policies across different countries in Asia, Europe and the USA makes it unique. Divided into three parts following a general introduction that sets the context of the study, the book deals with the case of the USA, EU and European countries as well as with that of key Asian countries. Of specific relevance is the European Union and euro-area contexts that serve as a framework to the different EU national monetary and fiscal policy responses. Each chapter deals with a specific country, including Italy and the UK in Europe and Singapore and South Korea in Asia, and covers the following topics: the extent of the outbreak of the public health crisis and its macroeconomic impact; the comparative examination of fiscal and monetary policy responses to both crises; and an overall assessment of the effectiveness of these policies along with the public health policy to mitigate the economic impact. Given the unprecedented nature of the Covid-19 crisis, anyone eager to know more about its macroeconomic impact and ensuing policies in a comparative framework will be keen to read this book. It will be essential reading to any researcher, policy maker and/or analyst working in the area of public policy and is also a unique contribution to the field of European studies, Asian studies and Comparative Economic Studies.

The Economic and Financial Impacts of the COVID-19 Crisis Around the World: Expect the Unexpected provides an informed, research-based in-depth understanding of the COVID-19 crisis, its impacts on households, nonfinancial firms, banks, and financial market participants, and the effectiveness of the reactions of governments and policymakers in the United States and around the world. It provides reflections and perspectives on the social costs and benefits of various policies undertaken and a toolkit of preventive measures to deal with crises beyond the COVID-19 crisis. Authors Allen N. Berger, Mustafa U. Karakaplan, and Raluca A. Roman apply their expertise to the research and data on the COVID-19 economic crisis as well as draw on their own rich research experience. They take a holistic approach that compares and contrasts this crisis with other economic and financial crises and assesses economic and financial behavior and government policies in the booms before crises and the aftermaths following them, as well as the crises themselves. They do all this with a keen eye on “Expecting the Unexpected future crises, and policies that might anticipate them and provide better outcomes for society. Serves as a compendium of available research and data on COVID-19, policies in response to the pandemic, and its effects on the real economy, banking sector, and financial markets Contextualizes the COVID-19 economic crisis by comparing it to two other global crises from the past: the Crash of 1929 and the Global Financial Crisis of 2007–2009 Helps illustrate how crises that originate in financial markets and in the banking sector differ from each other as well as from the COVID-19 crisis that harmed the real economy first Compares the policies and outcomes of nations to the COVID-19 pandemic and assesses their costs and benefits, with potential implications for prospective future crises

Since the Bank of England was made independent in 1997, the conduct of monetary policy has been relatively uncontroversial. The debates between Keyneisans, monetarists and supporters of fixed exchange rate mechanisms now appear very distant. Despite the apparent consensus there are many issues related to the conduct of monetary policy that are not yet settled and which will soon come to the fore. Is the current form of independence for the Bank of England appropriate? Should a central bank target inflation or the prices level? How does a central bank deal with asset price deflation? Should more account be taken of monetary aggregates? Should central banks target asset prices? What is the relationship between the money supply and asset price inflation? How should central banks ensure financial stability? The IEA was at the forefront of changing the parameters of the debate surrounding monetary policy in the 1970s and 1980s. This text, brings together some of the leading authors in the field, including the current Governor of the Bank of England, to discuss current issues in monetary policy and the relationship between monetary policy and financial markets. It is appropriate for undergraduates and postgraduates in economics and finance as well as for practitioners in financial markets.

We introduce a new comprehensive announcement-level database tracking the extraordinary fiscal, monetary, prudential, and other policies that countries adopted in response to Covid-19. The database provides detailed information, including sizes where available, for 28 granular policies adopted by 74 countries during 2020. About 5,500 policy measures were announced during this period. Importantly, the database is organized and presented in a format easy for researchers to use in empirical analyses. Announcements were highly correlated across the broad fiscal, monetary, and prudential categories and at more granular levels. Advanced economies (AEs) introduced larger fiscal measures than emerging and developing economies (EMDEs) and relied primarily on large unconventional monetary policies. Bank capital requirements were relaxed widely in both AEs and EMs, while relaxation of provisioning requirements was more common among EMs. Supervisory expectations and reporting requirements were widely relaxed.