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Saturday, March 4, 2023

Modern Monetary Theory

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Modern Monetary Theory or Modern Money Theory (MMT) is a heterodox macroeconomic theory that describes currency as a public monopoly and unemployment as evidence that a currency monopolist is overly restricting the supply of the financial assets needed to pay taxes and satisfy savings desires. MMT is opposed to the mainstream understanding of macroeconomic theory and has been criticized heavily by many mainstream economists.

MMT says that governments create new money by using fiscal policy and that the primary risk once the economy reaches full employment is inflation, which can be addressed by gathering taxes to reduce the spending capacity of the private sector. MMT is debated with active dialogues about its theoretical integrity, the implications of the policy recommendations of its proponents, and the extent to which it is actually divergent from orthodox macroeconomics.

Principles

MMT's main tenets are that a government that issues its own fiat money:

  1. Can pay for goods, services, and financial assets without a need to first collect money in the form of taxes or debt issuance in advance of such purchases;
  2. Cannot be forced to default on debt denominated in its own currency;
  3. Is limited in its money creation and purchases only by inflation, which accelerates once the real resources (labour, capital and natural resources) of the economy are utilized at full employment;
  4. Recommends strengthening automatic stabilisers to control demand-pull inflation rather than relying upon discretionary tax changes;
  5. Issues bonds as a monetary policy device, rather than as a funding device.

The first four MMT tenets do not conflict with mainstream economics understanding of how money creation and inflation works. However, MMT economists disagree with mainstream economics about the fifth tenet, on the impact of government deficits on interest rates.

History

MMT synthesizes ideas from the State Theory of Money of Georg Friedrich Knapp (also known as chartalism) and Credit Theory of Money of Alfred Mitchell-Innes, the functional finance proposals of Abba Lerner, Hyman Minsky's views on the banking system and Wynne Godley's Sectoral balances approach.

Knapp wrote in 1905 that "money is a creature of law" rather than a commodity. Knapp contrasted his state theory of money with the Gold Standard view of "metallism", where the value of a unit of currency depends on the quantity of precious metal it contains or for which it may be exchanged. He said that the state can create pure paper money and make it exchangeable by recognizing it as legal tender, with the criterion for the money of a state being "that which is accepted at the public pay offices".

The prevailing view of money was that it had evolved from systems of barter to become a medium of exchange because it represented a durable commodity which had some use value, but proponents of MMT such as Randall Wray and Mathew Forstater said that more general statements appearing to support a chartalist view of tax-driven paper money appear in the earlier writings of many classical economists, including Adam Smith, Jean-Baptiste Say, J. S. Mill, Karl Marx, and William Stanley Jevons.

Alfred Mitchell-Innes wrote in 1914 that money exists not as a medium of exchange but as a standard of deferred payment, with government money being debt the government may reclaim through taxation. Innes said:

Whenever a tax is imposed, each taxpayer becomes responsible for the redemption of a small part of the debt which the government has contracted by its issues of money, whether coins, certificates, notes, drafts on the treasury, or by whatever name this money is called. He has to acquire his portion of the debt from some holder of a coin or certificate or other form of government money, and present it to the Treasury in liquidation of his legal debt. He has to redeem or cancel that portion of the debt ... The redemption of government debt by taxation is the basic law of coinage and of any issue of government 'money' in whatever form.

— Alfred Mitchell-Innes, "The Credit Theory of Money", The Banking Law Journal

Knapp and "chartalism" are referenced by John Maynard Keynes in the opening pages of his 1930 Treatise on Money and appear to have influenced Keynesian ideas on the role of the state in the economy.

By 1947, when Abba Lerner wrote his article "Money as a Creature of the State", economists had largely abandoned the idea that the value of money was closely linked to gold. Lerner said that responsibility for avoiding inflation and depressions lay with the state because of its ability to create or tax away money.

Hyman Minsky seemed to favor a chartalist approach to understanding money creation in his Stabilizing an Unstable Economy, while Basil Moore, in his book Horizontalists and Verticalists, lists the differences between bank money and state money.

In 1996, Wynne Godley wrote an article on his sectoral balances approach, which MMT draws from.

Economists Warren Mosler, L. Randall Wray, Stephanie Kelton, Bill Mitchell and Pavlina R. Tcherneva are largely responsible for reviving the idea of chartalism as an explanation of money creation; Wray refers to this revived formulation as Neo-Chartalism.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell's book Free Money (1996) describes in layman's terms the essence of chartalism.

Pavlina R. Tcherneva has developed the first mathematical framework for MMT and has largely focused on developing the idea of the job guarantee.

Bill Mitchell, Professor of Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CoFEE) at the University of Newcastle in Australia, coined the term 'Modern Monetary Theory'. In their 2008 book Full Employment Abandoned, Mitchell and Joan Muysken use the term to explain monetary systems in which national governments have a monopoly on issuing fiat currency and where a floating exchange rate frees monetary policy from the need to protect foreign exchange reserves.

Some contemporary proponents, such as Wray, place MMT within post-Keynesian economics, while MMT has been proposed as an alternative or complementary theory to monetary circuit theory, both being forms of endogenous money, i.e., money created within the economy, as by government deficit spending or bank lending, rather than from outside, perhaps with gold. In the complementary view, MMT explains the "vertical" (government-to-private and vice versa) interactions, while circuit theory is a model of the "horizontal" (private-to-private) interactions.

Scott Fullwiler has contributed detailed technical analysis of the banking and monetary systems.

By 2013, MMT had attracted a popular following through academic blogs and other websites.

In 2019, MMT became a major topic of debate after U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said in January that the theory should be a larger part of the conversation. In February 2019, Macroeconomics became the first academic textbook based on the theory, published by Bill Mitchell, Randall Wray, and Martin Watts. MMT became increasingly used by chief economists and Wall Street executives for economic forecasts and investment strategies. The theory was also intensely debated by lawmakers in Japan, which was planning to raise taxes after years of deficit spending.

In June 2020, Stephanie Kelton's MMT book The Deficit Myth became a New York Times bestseller.

In 2020 the Sri Lankan Central Bank under the governor W. D. Lakshman cited MMT as a justification for adopting unconventional monetary policy, which was continued by Ajith Nivard Cabraal. This has been heavily criticized and widely cited as causing accelerating inflation and exacerbating the Sri Lankan Economic Crisis. MMT scholars Stephanie Kelton and Fadhel Kaboub maintain that the Sri Lankan government's fiscal and monetary policy bore little resemblance to the recommendations of MMT economists.

Theoretical approach

In sovereign financial systems, banks can create money but these "horizontal" transactions do not increase net financial assets because assets are offset by liabilities. According to MMT advocates, "The balance sheet of the government does not include any domestic monetary instrument on its asset side; it owns no money. All monetary instruments issued by the government are on its liability side and are created and destroyed with spending and taxing or bond offerings." In MMT, "vertical money" enters circulation through government spending. Taxation and its legal tender enable power to discharge debt and establish fiat money as currency, giving it value by creating demand for it in the form of a private tax obligation. In addition, fines, fees, and licenses create demand for the currency. This currency can be issued by the domestic government or by using a foreign, accepted currency. An ongoing tax obligation, in concert with private confidence and acceptance of the currency, underpins the value of the currency. Because the government can issue its own currency at will, MMT maintains that the level of taxation relative to government spending (the government's deficit spending or budget surplus) is in reality a policy tool that regulates inflation and unemployment, and not a means of funding the government's activities by itself. The approach of MMT typically reverses theories of governmental austerity. The policy implications of the two are likewise typically opposed.

Vertical transactions

Illustration of the saving identity with the three sectors, the computation of the surplus or deficit balances for each and the flows between them

MMT labels a transaction between a government entity (public sector) and a non-government entity (private sector) as a "vertical transaction". The government sector includes the treasury and central bank. The non-government sector includes domestic and foreign private individuals and firms (including the private banking system) and foreign buyers and sellers of the currency.

Interaction between government and the banking sector

MMT is based on an account of the "operational realities" of interactions between the government and its central bank, and the commercial banking sector, with proponents like Scott Fullwiler arguing that understanding reserve accounting is critical to understanding monetary policy options.

A sovereign government typically has an operating account with the country's central bank. From this account, the government can spend and also receive taxes and other inflows. Each commercial bank also has an account with the central bank, by means of which it manages its reserves (that is, money for clearing and settling interbank transactions).

When a government spends money, its Treasury debits its operating account at its Central Bank and deposits this money into private bank accounts (and hence into the commercial banking system). This money increases the total deposits in the commercial bank sector. Taxation works oppositely: Private bank accounts are debited; thus, deposits in the commercial banking sector fall. In the United States, a portion of tax receipts are deposited in the treasury operating account, and a portion in commercial banks' designated Treasury Tax and Loan accounts.

Government bonds and interest rate maintenance

The Federal Reserve raising the Federal Funds Rate above U.S. Treasury interest rates creates an inverted yield curve, which predicts recessions.

Virtually all central banks set an interest rate target, and conduct open market operations to ensure base interest rates remain at that target level. According to MMT, the issuing of government bonds is best understood as an operation to offset government spending rather than a requirement to finance it.

In most countries, commercial banks' reserve accounts with the Central Bank must have a positive balance at the end of every day; in some countries, the amount is specifically set as a proportion of the liabilities a bank has, i.e., its customer deposits. This is known as a reserve requirement. At the end of every day, a commercial bank will have to examine the status of their reserve accounts. Those that are in deficit have the option of borrowing the required funds from the Central Bank, where they may be charged a lending rate (sometimes known as a discount window or discount rate) on the amount they borrow. On the other hand, the banks that have excess reserves can simply leave them with the central bank and earn a support rate from the central bank. Some countries, such as Japan, have a support rate of zero.

Banks with more reserves than they need will be willing to lend to banks with a reserve shortage on the interbank lending market. The surplus banks will want to earn a higher rate than the support rate that the central bank pays on reserves; whereas the deficit banks will want to pay a lower interest rate than the discount rate the central bank charges for borrowing. Thus, they will lend to each other until each bank has reached their reserve requirement. In a balanced system, where there are just enough total reserves for all the banks to meet requirements, the short-term interbank lending rate will be in between the support rate and the discount rate.

Under an MMT framework where government spending injects new reserves into the commercial banking system, and taxes withdraw them from the banking system, government activity would have an instant effect on interbank lending. If on a particular day, the government spends more than it taxes, reserves have been added to the banking system (see vertical transactions). This action typically leads to a system-wide surplus of reserves, with competition between banks seeking to lend their excess reserves, forcing the short-term interest rate down to the support rate (or to zero if a support rate is not in place). At this point, banks will simply keep their reserve surplus with their central bank and earn the support rate.

The alternate case is where the government receives more taxes on a particular day than it spends. Then there may be a system-wide deficit of reserves. Consequently, surplus funds will be in demand on the interbank market, and thus the short-term interest rate will rise towards the discount rate. Thus, if the central bank wants to maintain a target interest rate somewhere between the support rate and the discount rate, it must manage the liquidity in the system to ensure that the correct amount of reserves is on-hand in the banking system.

Central banks manage liquidity by buying and selling government bonds on the open market. When excess reserves are in the banking system, the Central Bank sells bonds, removing reserves from the banking system, because private individuals pay for the bonds. When insufficient reserves are in the system, the Central Bank buys government bonds from the private sector, adding reserves to the banking system.

The Central Bank buys bonds by simply creating money – it is not financed in any way. It is a net injection of reserves into the banking system. If a central bank is to maintain a target interest rate, then it must buy and sell government bonds on the open market in order to maintain the correct amount of reserves in the system.

Horizontal transactions

MMT economists describe any transactions within the private sector as "horizontal" transactions, including the expansion of the broad money supply through the extension of credit by banks.

MMT economists regard the concept of the money multiplier, where a bank is completely constrained in lending through the deposits it holds and its capital requirement, as misleading. Rather than being a practical limitation on lending, the cost of borrowing funds from the interbank market (or the Central Bank) represents a profitability consideration when the private bank lends in excess of its reserve and/or capital requirements (see interaction between government and the banking sector). Effects on employment are used as evidence that a currency monopolist is overly restricting the supply of the financial assets needed to pay taxes and satisfy savings desires.

According to MMT, bank credit should be regarded as a "leverage" of the monetary base and should not be regarded as increasing the net financial assets held by an economy: only the government or central bank is able to issue high-powered money with no corresponding liability. Stephanie Kelton said that bank money is generally accepted in settlement of debt and taxes because of state guarantees, but that state-issued high-powered money sits atop a "hierarchy of money".

Foreign sector

Imports and exports

MMT proponents such as Warren Mosler say that trade deficits are sustainable and beneficial to the standard of living in the short run. Imports are an economic benefit to the importing nation because they provide the nation with real goods. Exports, on the other hand, are an economic cost to the exporting nation because it is losing real goods that it could have consumed. Currency transferred to foreign ownership, however, represents a future claim over goods of that nation.

Cheap imports may also cause the failure of local firms providing similar goods at higher prices, and hence unemployment, but MMT proponents label that consideration as a subjective value-based one, rather than an economic-based one: It is up to a nation to decide whether it values the benefit of cheaper imports more than it values employment in a particular industry. Similarly a nation overly dependent on imports may face a supply shock if the exchange rate drops significantly, though central banks can and do trade on foreign exchange markets to avoid shocks to the exchange rate.

Foreign sector and government

MMT says that as long as demand exists for the issuer's currency, whether the bond holder is foreign or not, governments can never be insolvent when the debt obligations are in their own currency; this is because the government is not constrained in creating its own fiat currency (although the bond holder may affect the exchange rate by converting to local currency).

MMT does agree with mainstream economics that debt in a foreign currency is a fiscal risk to governments, because the indebted government cannot create foreign currency. In this case, the only way the government can repay its foreign debt is to ensure that its currency is continually in high demand by foreigners over the period that it wishes to repay its debt; an exchange rate collapse would potentially multiply the debt many times over asymptotically, making it impossible to repay. In that case, the government can default, or attempt to shift to an export-led strategy or raise interest rates to attract foreign investment in the currency. Either one negatively effects the economy.

Policy implications

Economist Stephanie Kelton explained several points made by MMT in March, 2019:

  • Under MMT, fiscal policy (i.e., government taxing and spending decisions) is the primary means of achieving full employment, establishing the budget deficit at the level necessary to reach that goal. In mainstream economics, monetary policy (i.e., Central Bank adjustment of interest rates and its balance sheet) is the primary mechanism, assuming there is some interest rate low enough to achieve full employment. Kelton said that "cutting interest rates is ineffective in a slump" because businesses, expecting weak profits and few customers, will not invest even at very low interest rates.
  • Government interest expenses are proportional to interest rates, so raising rates is a form of stimulus (it increases the budget deficit and injects money into the private sector, other things being equal); cutting rates is a form of austerity.
  • Achieving full employment can be administered via a centrally-funded job guarantee, which acts as an automatic stabilizer. When private sector jobs are plentiful, the government spending on guaranteed jobs is lower, and vice versa.
  • Under MMT, expansionary fiscal policy, i.e., money creation to fund purchases, can increase bank reserves, which can lower interest rates. In mainstream economics, expansionary fiscal policy, i.e., debt issuance and spending, can result in higher interest rates, crowding out economic activity.

Economist John T. Harvey explained several of the premises of MMT and their policy implications in March 2019:

  • The private sector treats labor as a cost to be minimized, so it cannot be expected to achieve full employment without government creating jobs, too, such as through a job guarantee.
  • The public sector's deficit is the private sector's surplus and vice versa, by accounting identity, which increased private sector debt during the Clinton-era budget surpluses.
  • Creating money activates idle resources, mainly labor. Not doing so is immoral.
  • Demand can be insensitive to interest rate changes, so a key mainstream assumption, that lower interest rates lead to higher demand, is questionable.
  • There is a "free lunch" in creating money to fund government expenditure to achieve full employment. Unemployment is a burden; full employment is not.
  • Creating money alone does not cause inflation; spending it when the economy is at full employment can.

MMT says that "borrowing" is a misnomer when applied to a sovereign government's fiscal operations, because the government is merely accepting its own IOUs, and nobody can borrow back their own debt instruments. Sovereign government goes into debt by issuing its own liabilities that are financial wealth to the private sector. "Private debt is debt, but government debt is financial wealth to the private sector."

In this theory, sovereign government is not financially constrained in its ability to spend; the government can afford to buy anything that is for sale in currency that it issues; there may, however, be political constraints, like a debt ceiling law. The only constraint is that excessive spending by any sector of the economy, whether households, firms, or public, could cause inflationary pressures.

MMT economists advocate a government-funded job guarantee scheme to eliminate involuntary unemployment. Proponents say that this activity can be consistent with price stability because it targets unemployment directly rather than attempting to increase private sector job creation indirectly through a much larger economic stimulus, and maintains a "buffer stock" of labor that can readily switch to the private sector when jobs become available. A job guarantee program could also be considered an automatic stabilizer to the economy, expanding when private sector activity cools down and shrinking in size when private sector activity heats up.

MMT economists also say quantitative easing is unlikely to have the effects that its advocates hope for. Under MMT, QE – the purchasing of government debt by central banks – is simply an asset swap, exchanging interest-bearing dollars for non-interest-bearing dollars. The net result of this procedure is not to inject new investment into the real economy, but instead to drive up asset prices, shifting money from government bonds into other assets such as equities, which enhances economic inequality. The Bank of England's analysis of QE confirms that it has disproportionately benefited the wealthiest.

Comparison of MMT with mainstream Keynesian economics

MMT can be compared and contrasted with mainstream Keynesian economics in a variety of ways:

Topic Mainstream Keynesian MMT
Funding government spending Advocates taxation and issuing bonds (debt) as preferred methods for funding government spending. Emphasizes that government fund spending by crediting bank accounts.
Purpose of taxation To pay down debt from central banks loaned to the government at interest, which is spent into the economy and the taxpayer needs to repay. Primarily to drive up demand for currency. Secondary uses of taxation include lowering inflation, reducing income inequality, and discouraging bad behavior.
Achieving full employment Main strategy uses monetary policy; central bank has "dual mandate" of maximum employment and stable prices, but these goals are not always compatible. For example, much higher interest rates used to reduce inflation also caused high unemployment in the early 1980s. Main strategy uses fiscal policy; running a budget deficit large enough to achieve full employment through a job guarantee.
Inflation control Driven by monetary policy; central bank sets interest rates consistent with a stable price level, sometimes setting a target inflation rate. Driven by fiscal policy; government increases taxes to remove money from private sector. A job guarantee also provides a NAIBER, which acts as an inflation control mechanism.
Setting interest rates Managed by central bank to achieve "dual mandate" of maximum employment and stable prices. Emphasizes that an interest rate target is not a potent policy. The government may choose to maintain a zero interest-rate policy by not issuing public debt at all.
Budget deficit impact on interest rates At full employment, higher budget deficit can crowd out investment. Deficit spending can drive down interest rates, encouraging investment and thus "crowding in" economic activity.
Automatic stabilizers Primary stabilizers are unemployment insurance and food stamps, which increase budget deficits in a downturn. In addition to the other stabilizers, a job guarantee would increase deficits in a downturn.

Reaction and commentary

A 2019 survey of leading economists by the University of Chicago Booth's Initiative on Global Markets showed a unanimous rejection of assertions attributed by the survey to Modern Monetary Theory: "Countries that borrow in their own currency should not worry about government deficits because they can always create money to finance their debt" and "Countries that borrow in their own currency can finance as much real government spending as they want by creating money". Directly responding to the survey, MMT economist William K. Black said "MMT scholars do not make or support either claim." Multiple MMT academics regard the attribution of these claims as a smear.

The post-Keynesian economist Thomas Palley said that MMT is largely a restatement of elementary Keynesian economics, but prone to "over-simplistic analysis" and understating the risks of its policy implications. Palley does not agree with MMT saying that standard Keynesian analysis does not fully capture the accounting identities and financial restraints on a government that can issue its own money. He said that these insights are well captured by standard Keynesian stock-flow consistent IS-LM models, and have been well understood by Keynesian economists for decades. He also says MMT "assumes away the problem of fiscal–monetary conflict" – that is, that the governmental body that creates the spending budget (e.g. the legislature) may refuse to cooperate with the governmental body that controls the money supply (e.g., the central bank). He said the policies proposed by MMT proponents would cause serious financial instability in an open economy with flexible exchange rates, while using fixed exchange rates would restore hard financial constraints on the government and "undermines MMT's main claim about sovereign money freeing governments from standard market disciplines and financial constraints". He says that MMT lacks a plausible theory of inflation, particularly in the context of full employment in the employer of last resort policy first proposed by Hyman Minsky and advocated by Bill Mitchell and other MMT theorists; of a lack of appreciation of the financial instability that could be caused by permanently zero interest rates; and of overstating the importance of government-created money. Palley concludes that MMT provides no new insights about monetary theory, while making unsubstantiated claims about macroeconomic policy, and that MMT has only received attention recently due to it being a "policy polemic for depressed times".

Marc Lavoie said that whilst the neochartalist argument is "essentially correct", many of its counter-intuitive claims depend on a "confusing" and "fictitious" consolidation of government and central banking operations, which is what Palley calls "the problem of fiscal–monetary conflict". James K. Galbraith, a son of John Kenneth Galbraith, supports MMT and wrote the foreword for Mosler's book Seven Deadly Innocent Frauds of Economic Policy in 2010.

New Keynesian economist and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics, Paul Krugman, says MMT goes too far in its support for government budget deficits, and ignores the inflationary implications of maintaining budget deficits when the economy is growing. Krugman described MMT devotees as engaging in "calvinball" – a game from the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes in which the players change the rules at whim. Austrian School economist Robert P. Murphy states that MMT is "dead wrong" and that "the MMT worldview doesn't live up to its promises". He said that MMT saying cutting government deficits erodes private saving is true "only for the portion of private saving that is not invested" and says that the national accounting identities used to explain this aspect of MMT could equally be used to support arguments that government deficits "crowd out" private sector investment.

The chartalist view of money itself, and the MMT emphasis on the importance of taxes in driving money, is also a source of criticism. In 2015, three MMT economists, Scott Fullwiler, Stephanie Kelton, and L. Randall Wray, addressed what they saw as the main criticisms being made.

Monetary policy of the United States

(Percent change from a year earlier)
  CPI
  Core CPI

The monetary policy of The United States is the set of policies related to the minting and printing of United States dollars, plus the legal exchange of currency, demand deposits, the money supply, etc. In the United States, the central bank, The Federal Reserve System, colloquially known as "The Fed" is the monetary authority.

It is significant to point out that the United States uses a fiat currency as of 1933, whereas from 1873 - 1933 a precious metal standard or gold standard was in use.

The Federal Reserve's board of governors, along with the Open Market Committee are the principle arbiters of monetary policy in the United States, though the U.S. is unique in that the monetary policy role is ultimately shared along with the United States Treasury (US Treasury Securities). The Treasury is the penultimate agency on fiscal policy, though it is directly involved in monetary policy through printing & minting federal reserve notes and treasurys.

The Fed is largely concerned with policies related to the issuance of loans (including reserve rate and interest rates), along with other policies that determine the size and rate of growth of the money supply (such as buying and selling government bonds), whereas the Treasury deals directly with minting and printing as well as budgeting the government. The U.S. Congress established three key objectives for monetary policy in the Federal Reserve Act: maximizing employment, stabilizing prices, and moderating long-term interest rates.

Overview

The Federal Reserve Act created the Federal Reserve System in 1913 as the central bank of the United States. Its primary task is to "conduct the nation's monetary policy to promote maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates in the U.S. economy". It is also tasked to promote the stability of the financial system and regulate financial institutions, and to act as lender of last resort

The monetary policy of the United States is conducted by the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), which is composed of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and 5 out of the 12 Federal Reserve Bank presidents, and is implemented by all twelve regional Federal Reserve Banks.

Monetary policy refers to actions made by central banks which determine the size and growth rate of the money supply available in the economy, and which would result in desired objectives like low inflation, low unemployment and stable financial systems. The economy's aggregate money supply is the total of

  • M0 money, or Monetary Base - "dollars" in currency and bank money balances credited to the central bank's depositors, which are backed by the central bank's assets,
  • plus M1, M2, M3 money - "dollars" in the form of bank money balances credited to banks' depositors, which are backed by the bank's assets and investments.

The FOMC influences the level of money available to the economy by the following means:

  • Reserve requirements - specifies a required minimum percentage of deposits in a commercial bank that should be held as reserve (i.e. as deposits with the Federal Reserve), with the rest available to loan or invest. Higher requirements mean less money loaned or invested, helping keep inflation in check. Raising the federal funds rate earned on those reserves also helps achieve this objective.
  • Open market operations - the Federal Reserve buys or sells US Treasury bonds and other securities held by banks in exchange for reserves; more reserves increase a bank's capacity to loan or invest elsewhere.
  • Discount window lending - banks can borrow from the Federal Reserve.

Monetary policy directly affects interest rates; it indirectly affects stock prices, wealth, and currency exchange rates. Through these channels, monetary policy influences spending, investment, production, employment, and inflation in the United States. Effective monetary policy complements fiscal policy to support economic growth.

The Federal Reserve's monetary policy objectives to keep prices stable and unemployment low is often called the dual mandate. This replaces past practices under a gold standard where the main concern is the gold equivalent of the local currency, or under a gold exchange standard where the concern is fixing the exchange rate versus another gold-convertible currency (previously practiced worldwide under the Bretton Woods Agreement of 1944 via fixed exchange rates to the U.S. dollar).

Money supply

  Yearly M2 money supply increases
  Monthly M2 money supply increases
  Monthly M2 money supply decreases
 
United States money supply
  M2
  M1

The money supply has different components, generally broken down into "narrow" and "broad" money, reflecting the different degrees of liquidity ('spendability') of each different type, as broader forms of money can be converted into narrow forms of money (or may be readily accepted as money by others, such as personal checks).

For example, demand deposits are technically promises to pay on demand, while savings deposits are promises to pay subject to some withdrawal restrictions, and Certificates of Deposit are promises to pay only at certain specified dates; each can be converted into money, but "narrow" forms of money can be converted more readily. The Federal Reserve directly controls only the most narrow form of money, physical cash outstanding along with the reserves of banks throughout the country (known as M0 or the monetary base); the Federal Reserve indirectly influences the supply of other types of money.

Broad money includes money held in deposit balances in banks and other forms created in the financial system. Basic economics also teaches that the money supply shrinks when loans are repaid; however, the money supply will not necessarily decrease depending on the creation of new loans and other effects. Other than loans, investment activities of commercial banks and the Federal Reserve also increase and decrease the money supply. Discussion of "money" often confuses the different measures and may lead to misguided commentary on monetary policy and misunderstandings of policy discussions.

Inverted yield curves to tame inflation

US Treasury interest rates compared to Federal Funds Rate

The Federal Reserve has used the Federal funds rate as a primary tool to bring down inflation (quantitative tightening) or induce more inflation (quantitative easing) to get to their target of 2% annual inflation. To tame inflation the Fed raises the FFR causing shorter term interest rates to rise and eventually climb above their longer maturity bonds causing an Inverted yield curve which usually predates a recession by several months which is deflationary. 

Current state of US monetary policy

In August 2020, after undershooting its 2% inflation target for years, the Fed announced it would be allowing inflation to temporarily rise higher, in order to target an average of 2% over the longer term. It is still unclear if this change will make much practical difference in monetary policy anytime soon.

Structure of modern US institutions

Federal Reserve

Monetary policy in the US is determined and implemented by the US Federal Reserve System, commonly referred to as the Federal Reserve. Established in 1913 by the Federal Reserve Act to provide central banking functions, the Federal Reserve System is a quasi-public institution. Ostensibly, the Federal Reserve Banks are 12 private banking corporations; they are independent in their day-to-day operations, but legislatively accountable to Congress through the auspices of Federal Reserve Board of Governors.

The Board of Governors is an independent governmental agency consisting of seven officials and their support staff of over 1800 employees headquartered in Washington, D.C. It is independent in the sense that the Board currently operates without official obligation to accept the requests or advice of any elected official with regard to actions on the money supply, and its methods of funding also preserve independence. The Governors are nominated by the President of the United States, and nominations must be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. There is very strong economic consensus that independence from political influence is good for monetary policy.

The presidents of the Federal Reserve Banks are nominated by each bank's respective Board of Directors, but must also be approved by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve. The Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board is generally considered to have the most important position, followed by the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The Federal Reserve System is primarily funded by interest collected on their portfolio of securities from the US Treasury, and the Fed has broad discretion in drafting its own budget, but, historically, nearly all the interest the Federal Reserve collects is rebated to the government each year.

The Federal Reserve has four main mechanisms for manipulating the money supply. It can buy or sell treasury securities. Selling securities has the effect of reducing the monetary base (because it accepts money in return for purchase of securities), taking that money out of circulation. Purchasing treasury securities increases the monetary base (because it pays out hard currency in exchange for accepting securities). Secondly, the discount rate can be changed. Third, the Federal Reserve can adjust the reserve requirement, which can affect the money multiplier; the reserve requirement is adjusted only infrequently, and was last adjusted in March 2020, at which time it was set to zero. At a reserve requirement of zero, the money multiplier is undefined, because calculating it would involve division by zero. In October 2008 the Federal Reserve added a fourth mechanism by beginning to pay interest on reserves, which one year later the Fed Chairman described as the "most important tool" the Fed could use to raise interest rates.

In practice, the Federal Reserve uses open market operations to influence short-term interest rates, which is the primary tool of monetary policy. The federal funds rate, for which the Federal Open Market Committee announces a target on a regular basis, reflects one of the key rates for interbank lending. Open market operations change the supply of reserve balances, and the federal funds rate is sensitive to these operations.

In theory, the Federal Reserve has unlimited capacity to influence this rate, and although the federal funds rate is set by banks borrowing and lending funds to each other, the federal funds rate generally stays within a limited range above and below the target (as participants are aware of the Fed's power to influence this rate).

Assuming a closed economy, where foreign capital or trade does not affect the money supply, when money supply increases, interest rates go down. Businesses and consumers have a lower cost of capital and can increase spending and capital improvement projects. This encourages short-term growth. Conversely, when the money supply falls, interest rates go up, increasing the cost of capital and leading to more conservative spending and investment. The Federal reserve increases interest rates to combat Inflation.

U.S. Treasury

   10 Year Treasury Bond
   2 Year Treasury Bond
   3 month Treasury Bond
   Effective Federal Funds Rate
   CPI inflation year/year
  Recessions
 

A United States Treasury security is an IOU from the US Government. It is a government debt instrument issued by the United States Department of the Treasury to finance government spending as an alternative to taxation. Treasury securities are often referred to simply as "Treasuries". Since 2012 the management of government debt has been arranged by the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, succeeding the Bureau of the Public Debt.

Private commercial banks

When money is deposited in a bank, it can then be lent out to another person. If the initial deposit was $100 and the bank lends out $100 to another customer the money supply has increased by $100. However, because the depositor can ask for the money back, banks have to maintain minimum reserves to service customer needs. If the reserve requirement is 10% then, in the earlier example, the bank can lend $90 and thus the money supply increases by only $90. The reserve requirement therefore acts as a limit on this multiplier effect. Because the reserve requirement only applies to the more narrow forms of money creation (corresponding to M1), but does not apply to certain types of deposits (such as time deposits), reserve requirements play a limited role in monetary policy.

Money creation

As on Nov 2021 the US government maintains over US$2214.3 billion in cash money (primarily Federal Reserve Notes) in circulation throughout the world, up from a sum of less than $30 billion in 1959. Below is an outline of the process which is currently used to control the amount of money in the economy. The amount of money in circulation generally increases to accommodate money demanded by the growth of the country's production. The process of money creation usually goes as follows:

  1. Banks go through their daily transactions. Of the total money deposited at banks, significant and predictable proportions often remain deposited, and may be referred to as "core deposits". Banks use the bulk of "non-moving" money (their stable or "core" deposit base) by loaning it out. Banks have a legal obligation to keep a certain fraction of bank deposit money on-hand at all times.
  2. In order to raise additional money to cover excess spending, Congress increases the size of the National Debt by issuing securities typically in the form of a Treasury Bond (see United States Treasury security). It offers the Treasury security for sale, and someone pays cash to the government in exchange. Banks are often the purchasers of these securities, and these securities currently play a crucial role in the process.
  3. The 12-person Federal Open Market Committee, which consists of the heads of the Federal Reserve System (the seven Federal governors and five bank presidents), meets eight times a year to determine how they would like to influence the economy. They create a plan called the country's "monetary policy" which sets targets for things such as interest rates.
  4. Every business day, the Federal Reserve System engages in Open market operations. If the Federal Reserve wants to increase the money supply, it will buy securities (such as U.S. Treasury Bonds) anonymously from banks in exchange for dollars. If the Federal Reserve wants to decrease the money supply, it will sell securities to the banks in exchange for dollars, taking those dollars out of circulation. When the Federal Reserve makes a purchase, it credits the seller's reserve account (with the Federal Reserve). The money that it deposits into the seller's account is not transferred from any existing funds, therefore it is at this point that the Federal Reserve has created High-powered money.
  5. By means of open market operations, the Federal Reserve affects the free reserves of commercial banks in the country. Anna Schwartz explains that "if the Federal Reserve increases reserves, a single bank can make loans up to the amount of its excess reserves, creating an equal amount of deposits".
  6. Since banks have more free reserves, they may loan out the money, because holding the money would amount to accepting the cost of foregone interest. When a loan is granted, a person is generally granted the money by adding to the balance on their bank account.
  7. This is how the Federal Reserve's high-powered money is multiplied into a larger amount of broad money, through bank loans; as written in a particular case study, "as banks increase or decrease loans, the nation's (broad) money supply increases or decreases." Once granted these additional funds, the recipient has the option to withdraw physical currency (dollar bills and coins) from the bank, which will reduce the amount of money available for further on-lending (and money creation) in the banking system.
  8. In many cases, account-holders will request cash withdrawals, so banks must keep a supply of cash handy. When they believe they need more cash than they have on hand, banks can make requests for cash with the Federal Reserve. In turn, the Federal Reserve examines these requests and places an order for printed money with the US Treasury Department. The Treasury Department sends these requests to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (to make dollar bills) and the Bureau of the Mint (to stamp the coins).
  9. The U.S. Treasury sells this newly printed money to the Federal Reserve for the cost of printing. This is about 6 cents per bill for any denomination. Aside from printing costs, the Federal Reserve must pledge collateral (typically government securities such as Treasury bonds) to put new money, which does not replace old notes, into circulation. This printed cash can then be distributed to banks, as needed.

Though the Federal Reserve authorizes and distributes the currency printed by the Treasury (the primary component of the narrow monetary base), the broad money supply is primarily created by commercial banks through the money multiplier mechanism. One textbook summarizes the process as follows:

"The Fed" controls the money supply in the United States by controlling the amount of loans made by commercial banks. New loans are usually in the form of increased checking account balances, and since checkable deposits are part of the money supply, the money supply increases when new loans are made ...

This type of money is convertible into cash when depositors request cash withdrawals, which will require banks to limit or reduce their lending. The vast majority of the broad money supply throughout the world represents current outstanding loans of banks to various debtors. A very small amount of U.S. currency still exists as "United States Notes", which have no meaningful economic difference from Federal Reserve notes in their usage, although they departed significantly in their method of issuance into circulation. The currency distributed by the Federal Reserve has been given the official designation of "Federal Reserve Notes".

Significant effects

In 2005, the Federal Reserve held approximately 9% of the national debt as assets against the liability of printed money. In previous periods, the Federal Reserve has used other debt instruments, such as debt securities issued by private corporations. During periods when the national debt of the United States has declined significantly (such as happened in fiscal years 1999 and 2000), monetary policy and financial markets experts have studied the practical implications of having "too little" government debt: both the Federal Reserve and financial markets use the price information, yield curve and the so-called risk free rate extensively.

Experts are hopeful that other assets could take the place of National Debt as the base asset to back Federal Reserve notes, and Alan Greenspan, long the head of the Federal Reserve, has been quoted as saying, "I am confident that U.S. financial markets, which are the most innovative and efficient in the world, can readily adapt to a paydown of Treasury debt by creating private alternatives with many of the attributes that market participants value in Treasury securities." In principle, the government could still issue debt securities in significant quantities while having no net debt, and significant quantities of government debt securities are also held by other government agencies.

Although the U.S. government receives income overall from seigniorage, there are costs associated with maintaining the money supply. Leading ecological economist and steady-state theorist Herman Daly, claims that "over 95% of our [broad] money supply [in the United States] is created by the private banking system (demand deposits) and bears interest as a condition of its existence", a conclusion drawn from the Federal Reserve's ultimate dependence on increased activity in fractional reserve lending when it exercises open market operations. Economist Eric Miller criticizes Daly's logic because money is created in the banking system in response to demand for the money, which justifies cost.

Thus, use of expansionary open market operations typically generates more debt in the private sector of society (in the form of additional bank deposits). The private banking system charges interest to borrowers as a cost to borrow the money. The interest costs are borne by those that have borrowed, and without this borrowing, open market operations would be unsuccessful in maintaining the broad money supply, though alternative implementations of monetary policy could be used. Depositors of funds in the banking system are paid interest on their savings (or provided other services, such as checking account privileges or physical security for their "cash"), as compensation for "lending" their funds to the bank.

Increases (or contractions) of the money supply corresponds to growth (or contraction) in interest-bearing debt in the country. The concepts involved in monetary policy may be widely misunderstood in the general public, as evidenced by the volume of literature on topics such as "Federal Reserve conspiracy" and "Federal Reserve fraud".

Uncertainties

A few of the uncertainties involved in monetary policy decision making are described by the federal reserve:

  • While these policy choices seem reasonably straightforward, monetary policy makers routinely face certain notable uncertainties. First, the actual position of the economy and growth in aggregate demand at any time are only partially known, as key information on spending, production, and prices becomes available only with a lag. Therefore, policy makers must rely on estimates of these economic variables when assessing the appropriate course of policy, aware that they could act on the basis of misleading information. Second, exactly how a given adjustment in the federal funds rate will affect growth in aggregate demand—in terms of both the overall magnitude and the timing of its impact—is never certain. Economic models can provide rules of thumb for how the economy will respond, but these rules of thumb are subject to statistical error. Third, the growth in aggregate supply, often called the growth in potential output, cannot be measured with certainty.
  • In practice, as previously noted, monetary policy makers do not have up-to-the-minute information on the state of the economy and prices. Useful information is limited not only by lags in the collection and availability of key data but also by later revisions, which can alter the picture considerably. Therefore, although monetary policy makers will eventually be able to offset the effects that adverse demand shocks have on the economy, it will be some time before the shock is fully recognized and—given the lag between a policy action and the effect of the action on aggregate demand—an even longer time before it is countered. Add to this the uncertainty about how the economy will respond to an easing or tightening of policy of a given magnitude, and it is not hard to see how the economy and prices can depart from a desired path for a period of time.
  • The statutory goals of maximum employment and stable prices are easier to achieve if the public understands those goals and believes that the Federal Reserve will take effective measures to achieve them.
  • Although the goals of monetary policy are clearly spelled out in law, the means to achieve those goals are not. Changes in the FOMC's target federal funds rate take some time to affect the economy and prices, and it is often far from obvious whether a selected level of the federal funds rate will achieve those goals.

Opinions of the Federal Reserve

The Federal Reserve is lauded by some economists, while being the target of scathing criticism by other economists, legislators, and sometimes members of the general public. The former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Ben Bernanke, is one of the leading academic critics of the Federal Reserve's policies during the Great Depression.

Achievements

One of the functions of a central bank is to facilitate the transfer of funds through the economy, and the Federal Reserve System is largely responsible for the efficiency in the banking sector. There have also been specific instances which put the Federal Reserve in the spotlight of public attention. For instance, after the stock market crash in 1987, the actions of the Fed are generally believed to have aided in recovery. Also, the Federal Reserve is credited for easing tensions in the business sector with the reassurances given following the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States.

Criticisms

The Federal Reserve has been the target of various criticisms, involving: accountability, effectiveness, opacity, inadequate banking regulation, and potential market distortion. Federal Reserve policy has also been criticized for directly and indirectly benefiting large banks instead of consumers. For example, regarding the Federal Reserve's response to the 2007–2010 financial crisis, Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz explained how the U.S. Federal Reserve was implementing another monetary policy—creating currency—as a method to combat the liquidity trap.

By creating $600 billion and inserting this directly into banks the Federal Reserve intended to spur banks to finance more domestic loans and refinance mortgages. However, banks instead were spending the money in more profitable areas by investing internationally in emerging markets. Banks were also investing in foreign currencies which Stiglitz and others point out may lead to currency wars while China redirects its currency holdings away from the United States.

Auditing

The Federal Reserve is subject to different requirements for transparency and audits than other government agencies, which its supporters claim is another element of the Fed's independence. Although the Federal Reserve has been required by law to publish independently audited financial statements since 1999, the Federal Reserve is not audited in the same way as other government agencies. Some confusion can arise because there are many types of audits, including: investigative or fraud audits; and financial audits, which are audits of accounting statements; there are also compliance, operational, and information system audits.

The Federal Reserve's annual financial statements are audited by an outside auditor. Similar to other government agencies, the Federal Reserve maintains an Office of the Inspector General, whose mandate includes conducting and supervising "independent and objective audits, investigations, inspections, evaluations, and other reviews of Board programs and operations". The Inspector General's audits and reviews are available on the Federal Reserve's website.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has the power to conduct audits, subject to certain areas of operations that are excluded from GAO audits; other areas may be audited at specific Congressional request, and have included bank supervision, government securities activities, and payment system activities. The GAO is specifically restricted any authority over monetary policy transactions; the New York Times reported in 1989 that "such transactions are now shielded from outside audit, although the Fed influences interest rates through the purchase of hundreds of billions of dollars in Treasury securities." As mentioned above, it was in 1999 that the law governing the Federal Reserve was amended to formalize the already-existing annual practice of ordering independent audits of financial statements for the Federal Reserve Banks and the Board; the GAO's restrictions on auditing monetary policy continued, however.

Congressional oversight on monetary policy operations, foreign transactions, and the FOMC operations is exercised through the requirement for reports and through semi-annual monetary policy hearings. Scholars have conceded that the hearings did not prove an effective means of increasing oversight of the Federal Reserve, perhaps because "Congresspersons prefer to bash an autonomous and secretive Fed for economic misfortune rather than to share the responsibility for that misfortune with a fully accountable Central Bank", although the Federal Reserve has also consistently lobbied to maintain its independence and freedom of operation.

Fulfillment of wider economic goals

By law, the goals of the Fed's monetary policy are: high employment, sustainable growth, and stable prices.

Critics say that monetary policy in the United States has not achieved consistent success in meeting the goals that have been delegated to the Federal Reserve System by Congress. Congress began to review more options with regard to macroeconomic influence beginning in 1946 (after World War II), with the Federal Reserve receiving specific mandates in 1977 (after the country suffered a period of stagflation).

Throughout the period of the Federal Reserve following the mandates, the relative weight given to each of these goals has changed, depending on political developments. In particular, the theories of Keynesianism and monetarism have had great influence on both the theory and implementation of monetary policy, and the "prevailing wisdom" or consensus view of the economic and financial communities has changed over the years.

  • Elastic currency (magnitude of the money multiplier): the success of monetary policy is dependent on the ability to strongly influence the supply of money available to the citizens. If a currency is highly "elastic" (that is, has a higher money multiplier, corresponding to a tendency of the financial system to create more broad money for a given quantity of base money), plans to expand the money supply and accommodate growth are easier to implement. Low elasticity was one of many factors that contributed to the depth of the Great Depression: as banks cut lending, the money multiplier fell, and at the same time the Federal Reserve constricted the monetary base. The depression of the late 1920s is generally regarded as being the worst in the country's history, and the Federal Reserve has been criticized for monetary policy which worsened the depression. Partly to alleviate problems related to the depression, the United States transitioned from a gold standard and now uses a fiat currency; elasticity is believed to have been increased greatly.
The value of $1 over time, in 1776 dollars.
  • Stable prices – While some economists would regard any consistent inflation as a sign of unstable prices, policymakers could be satisfied with 1 or 2%; the consensus of "price stability" constituting long-run inflation of 1–2% is, however, a relatively recent development, and a change that has occurred at other central banks throughout the world. Inflation has averaged a 4.2% increase annually following the mandates applied in 1977; historic inflation since the establishment of the Federal Reserve in 1913 has averaged 3.4%. In contrast, some research indicates that average inflation for the 250 years before the system was near zero percent, though there were likely sharper upward and downward spikes in that timeframe as compared with more recent times. Central banks in some other countries, notably the German Bundesbank, had considerably better records of achieving price stability drawing on experience from the two episodes of hyperinflation and economic collapse under the country's previous central bank.

Inflation worldwide has fallen significantly since former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker began his tenure in 1979, a period which has been called the Great Moderation; some commentators attribute this to improved monetary policy worldwide, particularly in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. BusinessWeek notes that inflation has been relatively low since mid-1980s and it was during this time that Volcker wrote (in 1995), "It is a sobering fact that the prominence of central banks [such as the Federal Reserve] in this century has coincided with a general tendency towards more inflation, not less. By and large, if the overriding objective is price stability, we did better with the nineteenth-century gold standard and passive central banks, with currency boards, or even with 'free banking.'."

  • Sustainable growth – The growth of the economy may not be sustainable as the ability for households to save money has been on an overall decline and household debt is consistently rising.

Causes of The Great Depression

CPI 1914-2022
  M2 money supply increases Year/Year
 
Money supply decreased significantly between Black Tuesday and the Bank Holiday in March 1933 when there were massive bank runs

Monetarists believe that the Great Depression started as an ordinary recession, but that significant policy mistakes by monetary authorities (especially the Federal Reserve) caused a shrinking of the money supply, which greatly exacerbated the economic situation, causing a recession to descend into the Great Depression.

Public confusion

The Federal Reserve has established a library of information on their websites, however, many experts have spoken about the general level of public confusion that still exists on the subject of the economy; this lack of understanding of macroeconomic questions and monetary policy, however, exists in other countries as well. Critics of the Fed widely regard the system as being "opaque", and one of the Fed's most vehement opponents of his time, Congressman Louis T. McFadden, even went so far as to say that "Every effort has been made by the Federal Reserve Board to conceal its powers. ... "

There are, on the other hand, many economists who support the need for an independent central banking authority, and some have established websites that aim to clear up confusion about the economy and the Federal Reserve's operations. The Federal Reserve website itself publishes various information and instructional materials for a variety of audiences.

Criticism of government interference

Some economists, especially those belonging to the heterodox Austrian School, criticize the idea of even establishing monetary policy, believing that it distorts investment. Friedrich Hayek won the Nobel Prize for his elaboration of the Austrian business cycle theory.

Briefly, the theory holds that an artificial injection of credit, from a source such as a central bank like the Federal Reserve, sends false signals to entrepreneurs to engage in long-term investments due to a favorably low interest rate. However, the surge of investments undertaken represents an artificial boom, or bubble, because the low interest rate was achieved by an artificial expansion of the money supply and not by savings. Hence, the pool of real savings and resources have not increased and do not justify the investments undertaken.

These investments, which are more appropriately called "malinvestments", are realized to be unsustainable when the artificial credit spigot is shut off and interest rates rise. The malinvestments and unsustainable projects are liquidated, which is the recession. The theory demonstrates that the problem is the artificial boom which causes the malinvestments in the first place, made possible by an artificial injection of credit not from savings.

According to Austrian economics, without government intervention, interest rates will always be an equilibrium between the time-preferences of borrowers and savers, and this equilibrium is simply distorted by government intervention. This distortion, in their view, is the cause of the business cycle. Some Austrian economists—but by no means all—also support full reserve banking, a hypothetical financial/banking system where banks may not lend deposits. Others may advocate free banking, whereby the government abstains from any interference in what individuals may choose to use as money or the extent to which banks create money through the deposit and lending cycle.

Reserve requirement

The Federal Reserve regulates banking, and one regulation under its direct control is the reserve requirement which dictates how much money banks must keep in reserves, as compared to its demand deposits. Banks use their observation that the majority of deposits are not requested by the account holders at the same time.

Until March 2020 the Federal Reserve required that banks keep 10% of their deposits on hand, but in March 2020 the reserve requirement was reduced to zero. Some countries have no nationally mandated reserve requirements—banks use their own resources to determine what to hold in reserve, however their lending is typically constrained by other regulations. Other factors being equal, lower reserve percentages increases the possibility of Bank runs, such as the widespread runs of 1931. Low reserve requirements also allow for larger expansions of the money supply by actions of commercial banks—currently the private banking system has created much of the broad money supply of US dollars through lending activity. Monetary policy reform calling for 100% reserves has been advocated by economists such as: Irving Fisher, Frank Knight, many ecological economists along with economists of the Chicago School and Austrian School. Despite calls for reform, the nearly universal practice of fractional-reserve banking has remained in the United States.

Criticism of private sector involvement

Historically and to the present day, various social and political movements (such as social credit) have criticized the involvement of the private sector in "creating money", claiming that only the government should have the power to "make money". Some proponents also support full reserve banking or other non-orthodox approaches to monetary policy. Various terminology may be used, including "debt money", which may have emotive or political connotations. These are generally considered to be akin to conspiracy theories by mainstream economists and ignored in academic literature on monetary policy.

Operator (computer programming)

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