21st Century Monetary Policy: The Federal Reserve from the Great Inflation to COVID-19

The former chair of the Federal Reserve from 2006 to 2014 presents a look inside the institution and how it has steered monetary policy over the last seventy years and how new tools could shape the future of economic policy.
"Former Federal Reserve Chair Ben S. Bernanke helps readers understand how the Federal Reserve, the steward of U.S. monetary policy, got to where it is today, what it has learned from the diverse challenges it has faced, and how it may evolve in the future"--
21st Century Monetary Policy
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.21st Century Monetary PolicyBeyond 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.