Under the classical gold standard (1880-1914), the Bank of France maintained a stable discount rate while the Bank of England changed its rate very frequently. Why did the policies of these central banks, the two pillars of the gold standard, differ so much? How did the Bank of France manage to...

Is a strong commitment to monetary stability enough to ensure credibility? The recent literature suggests it might not be if the central bank cannot perform pure interest rate policy and has to resort to balance sheet policy: the central bank's financial strength (i.e. the long-term...

The economics literature lacks articles that provide a broad roadmap-let alone a logical explanation-of the new set of Federal Reserve policy tools that were created to counter the COVID-19 recession. This study provides an overview of the motivation for these new credit-easing programs-namely...

We evaluate the decentralized structure of the Federal Reserve System as a mechanism for generating and processing new ideas on monetary policy over the 1960 - 2000 period. We document the introduction of monetarism, rational expectations, credibility, transparency, and other monetary policy...

The decentralized structure of the Federal Reserve System is evaluated as a mechanism for generating and processing new ideas on monetary and financial policy. The role of the Reserve Banks starting in the 1960s is emphasized. The introduction of monetarism in the 1960s, rational expectations in...

If official interventions convey private information useful for price discovery in foreign-exchange markets, then they should have value as a forecast of near-term exchange-rate movements. Using a set of standard criteria, we show that approximately 60 percent of all U.S. foreign-exchange...

This paper studies the microfoundations of the so-called "gold device" policy by analysing a new dataset on the Bank of England's operations in the gold market at the heyday of the classical gold standard. It explains that "gold devices" must be understood in connection to the Bank's role as...

In this paper we survey the development of lending of last resort operations in the mid-19th century. We identify and document critical dimensions of the extension of lending of last resort functions, and also develop original empirical tests enabling us to identify such things as the emergence...