Some critics of recent monetary policy have focused on slow M2 growth, claiming that the Federal Reserve is too interested in price stability and is forsaking its growth mandate. Others criticize the Fed for achieving price stability too cautiously and urge the adoption of a rule that seeks to...

Are banks that fail in banking panics the riskiest ones prior to the panics? The free banking era in the United States provides useful data to examine this question because the assets held by the banks were traded at the New York Stock Exchange. The authors estimate the ex ante riskiness of a...

In October 1979 the Federal Reserve, in an attempt to curb double-digit inflation, announced that it would place more weight on monetary aggregates in policy deliberations. This policy shift helped reduce inflation but sent the economy into a recession. Three years later the Fed abandoned...