In his July 1832 veto message of the bill rechartering the Second Bank of the United States, President Andrew Jackson triggered the demise of America's second central bank with a stroke of his veto pen.
Monetary Policy

Monetary policy refers to the Federal Reserve's actions and communications to promote maximum employment, stable prices and moderate long-term interest rates.
The Richmond Fed hosted CORE Week and also launched the Goodfriend Memorial Lecture in early May.
Even though economists have made huge leaps in understanding how monetary policy impacts the economy, there remains substantial disagreement and imprecision in the estimates.
This paper evaluates the welfare effects of unemployment insurance in general equilibrium using a life-cycle model.
Do relative price changes account for the behavior of inflation in the pandemic and post-pandemic eras?
President Tom Barkin discusses recent data and events and explores potential implications for monetary policy.
Tom Barkin
President, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond
In part two of this two-part conversation, Robert Hetzel focuses on the Fed's policies during the Great Inflation and the Great Moderation and after the Great Recession, as well as the role of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond during these periods.
Market commentors noticed a pattern during Alan Greenspan's tenure as Fed chair from 1987 to 2006. The Fed, it appeared to some, had developed a policy of bailing out stock investors by injecting liquidity into the economy amid large stock market declines. This perceived tendency came to be called the "Greenspan put."
In part one of this two-part conversation, Robert Hetzel discusses the Fed's policy shifts in the two decades following the Treasury-Fed Accord of 1951 and the role of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond during that period.
President Tom Barkin discusses how he sees the economy, and the implications for inflation and for policy.
Tom Barkin
President, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond
Moves toward stable inflation and maximum employment can be in conflict in the short term.
Just by allowing the securities in its portfolio to mature, the Fed could reach a normalized size of its balance sheet in two to three years.
Tom Barkin discusses the state of inflation and the monetary policy response of the Federal Reserve, as well as his outlook on the national economy. Barkin is president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
President Tom Barkin reflects on monetary policy and the economy in 2022 and shares his thoughts on what’s ahead.
Tom Barkin
President, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond
Huberto Ennis explores how the Federal Reserve used its asset purchases to deal with market disruptions and the unprecedented economic issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic. He also discusses why and how the Fed is unwinding these purchases. Ennis is group vice president for macro and financial economics at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
The past few years have seen unprecedented real economy shocks, which are particularly hard to deal with for any central bank, and so drove a lot of the inflation in the wake of the pandemic's arrival.
Kartik Athreya
Executive Vice President and Director of Research
We theoretically and empirically investigate how climate risks affect collateralized debt markets. Our results highlight the importance of heterogeneous beliefs in understanding the effects of climate change on the financial system.
Laura Bakkensen, Toan Phan and Russell Wong
For the first time in more than a generation, we are grappling with high, broad-based, and persistent inflation. Is there an end in sight?
Tom Barkin
President and Chief Executive Officer
While the Fed has never been a stranger to criticism, the criticism has been notable and specific during the past year. The subject: inflation.
Kartik B. Athreya
Executive Vice President and Director of Research
Talking about the future has become a valuable tool of monetary policy, but recent events have prompted a reevaluation.
John O'Trakoun and Pierre-Daniel Sarte discuss the persistence of inflation over the years and what may set apart the current period of elevated prices compared to historical patterns. O'Trakoun is a senior policy economist and Sarte is a senior advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
Techniques at the frontiers of econometrics were addressed by economists during a recent research conference.
Kartik Athreya responds to recent critiques of the Federal Reserve and its efforts to combat inflation. Athreya is executive vice president and director of research at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
The newer a product is, the more likely its price will change and the larger the price change will likely be.
Declining gasoline prices have contributed to an easing of inflation and lower inflation expectations, working in tandem with the FOMC's efforts to bring price levels down. But how hard is monetary policy tapping on the brakes of the economy?
President Tom Barkin considers the forces behind today’s high inflation and offers his outlook for the economy.
Tom Barkin
President, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond
This theory may be obscure, even to economists, but it can have quite an impact on inflation.
One can argue whether the FOMC's response to inflation has been strong enough, but financial markets and surveys suggest that the Fed retains credibility for low inflation in the long run.
While the Fed has experience buying assets to respond to crises, questions remain around unwinding those actions
Today's inflationary snarls reflect both supply shocks and policy stimulus.
Columbia University economist on inflation, capital controls, and finding research topics.
Given the critical role that Reserve Bank presidents play in formulating monetary policy, the Federal Reserve has taken steps to ensure that the presidential selection process is transparent, fair, and inclusive.
Chris Murphy
Fed Chair Jerome Powell has stressed that monetary policy is a blunt instrument and using it to bring down inflation could entail some short-term pain. This risk, though, must be compared with outcomes that would confront the Fed and the economy were clear action not forthcoming.
Kartik B. Athreya
Executive Vice President and Director of Research
How might a CBDC alter the banking system? How does credit easing affect bank runs? These and other questions were addressed during a recent Richmond Fed conference.
Inflation has hit most other advanced economies in addition to the United States. What can we learn from their experiences?
Persistence in inflation depends on the time period studied.
President Tom Barkin outlines how he expects inflation to come down.
Tom Barkin
President, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond
John O'Trakoun offers an update on where inflation stands, how it is affecting the economy, and what steps the Federal Reserve is taking to bring it down. O'Trakoun is a senior policy economist at the Richmond Fed and primary author of the Bank's Macro Minute blog.
We use an estimated multi-sector New Keynesian model to decompose the behavior of U.S. inflation into contributions from sectoral (or "relative price") shocks, monetary policy shocks, and aggregate real shocks.
Francisco Ruge-Murcia and Alexander L. Wolman
As the Fed works to contain inflation, many ask whether we are headed into a recession. President Barkin shares his perspective.
Tom Barkin
President, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond
Perhaps history can be a guide on whether central banks should issue digital currencies.
When COVID-19 hit, it put consumers and businesses in unprecedented difficulty. Given the magnitude of the unique shock hitting the economy, the Fed acted to ensure that broader financial conditions did not further hurt consumers and businesses.
Kartik B. Athreya
Executive Vice President and Director of Research
Among the topics covered at the Marvin Goodfriend conference were Fed bond facilities' impact on corporate credit risk and how trade leads to a global Phillips curve.
Alex Wolman and Robert King reflect on the life and legacy of Marvin Goodfriend. Throughout his career, Goodfriend wrote a number of influential papers on monetary policy and played a key role in the development of the Richmond Fed's Research Department.
Inflation hasn’t been a hot topic for decades. Now that it’s back, it’s clear consumers and businesses dislike it. Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin discusses why and how the Fed is working to contain it.
Tom Barkin
President, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond
This essay discusses the ideas and contributions in Marvin Goodfriend and Robert G. King's 1988 paper and relates it to some of Goodfriend's other research on banking and monetary policy.
Douglas W. Diamond
University of Chicago
Marvin Goodfriend drew a number of conceptual and policy implications from his analysis of inflation scares, which have become part of the central banks' approaches to monetary policy.
In 1997, Marvin Goodfriend published two papers that advocated a new approach to monetary policy analysis.
Marvin Goodfriend's views on the proper role of a central bank and his defense of the federal structure of the Federal Reserve System.
An examination of Marvin Goodfriend and Robert G. King's "The Incredible Volcker Disinflation" paper.