This paper tests for the existence of asymmetric information between the Federal Reserve and the public by examining Federal Reserve and commercial inflation forecasts. It demonstrates that the Federal Reserve has considerable information about inflation beyond what is known to commercial...

This paper is a discussion of monetary efficiency, monetary safety, and the relation of the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act to both. It contains speculation about whether a modified version of the Act could have postponed or prevented the crisis of 2008.

A central bank's resource constraint bounds the dividends it can distribute by the present value of seignorage, which is a modest share of GDP. This is in spite of the mystique behind a central bank's balance sheet. Moreover, the statutes of the Federal Reserve or the ECB make it difficult for...