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Inside the Fed: Monetary Policy and Its Management, Martin through Greenspan to Bernanke (Hardcover)

~ Stephen H. Axilrod (Author)
Key Phrases: real funds rate, various chairmen, reserve aggregates, United States, New York, Reserve Bank (more...)

3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Axilrod, a longtime Federal Reserve System veteran, provides an insider's perspective on how the Fed has evolved over the past 50 years. Revealing the impact of personalities and their responses to political, social and bureaucratic situations, he explores such key topics such as money supply vs. interest rates, monetary base and reserve aggregates vs. money-market conditions, and increased emphasis on real-world variables rather than on monetary variables as indicators and guides for policy. The book is based mostly on anecdotal recollections of personal interactions with central bank leaders and others as they managed policy discussions and implementation. Despite the involvement of other influential parties, Axilrod's view is that chairmen took the lead in policy formation but had limited influence on the day-to-day operating targets. He also offers his thoughts on the future of the organization, noting that leaders will need to take a more direct account of international markets in making judgments about policy and its management. Informative and insightful, this view of the inner workings of the Fed will appeal to anyone with an interest in economics or curious about the organization's recent progression. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

"An intimate account of the Fed's depressing decline in the seventies and dramatic comeback in the Volcker years when the central bank triumphed over the biggest threat to the U.S. economy since the Great Depression. Now that the old enemy, stagflation, is stirring once more, the lessons Stephen Axilrod draws from past battles couldn't be timelier."
—Sylvia Nasar, author of A Beautiful Mind

"Informative and insightful, this view of the inner workings of the Fed will appeal to anyone with an interest in economics of curious about the organization's recent progression."
— Publishers Weekly

"Stephen Axilrod's aptly titled book is, indeed, the ultimate Federal Reserve insider's account. Leaving aside only the chairmen under whom he served, no one played a greater role in shaping U.S. monetary policy during these turbulent years or had a closer view of how the policy was made. And, true to the author, Axilrod's book is full of plain common sense about central banking, economic policy, and much beyond. No one seriously interested in American monetary policy in the post-World War II era can ignore what Axilrod recounts here."
—Benjamin M. Friedman, William Joseph Maier Professor of Political Economy, Harvard University

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Product Details

Hardcover: 213 pages
Publisher: The MIT Press (March 13, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0262012499
ISBN-13: 978-0262012492
Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 0.9 inches
Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #406,545 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Inside This Book (learn more)

Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
real funds rate, various chairmen, reserve aggregates, federal funds rate

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
United States, New York, Reserve Bank, Arthur Burns, Board of Governors, Plaza Accord, Federal Reserve System, Bernanke Fed, Bill Martin, The Miller Interlude, World War, Milton Friedman, Chuck Partee, National Bureau of Economic Research, Bank of England, Research Division, Paul Volcker, Bear Stearns, Bank of Japan, Wall Street, Volcker Fed, Louis Fed, Ben Bernanke, William Miller, Nikko Securities International

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9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Insider's View of Monetary Policymaking, February 22, 2009

By	Tidewater "Whaler" - See all my reviews

Steve Axilrod's book is a rare avis. Written as an insider on the playing field of Federal Reserve monetary policymaking from William McChesney Martin through Paul Volcker, when he was intimately involved in monetary analysis. Axilrod also opines on monetary policy matters subsequent to his departure conducted by Messrs. Greenspan and Bernanke. It is beautifully written, full of insider stuff, and always decent and polite--the latter characteristics being a hallmark (at least in the old days) of top Fed staff.

I served at the Fed at a high level during most of the Arthur Burns years, and can attest to the authenticity of Axilrod's observations for that time period. As a member of the Board Members' staffing responsible for other areas, I was not allowed to enter the inner sanctum where monetary policy was made. This I was assured by other staffers was a blessing, because FOMC meetings were notoriously boring. That's not to say that regular Board meetings were uproariously amusing, only that FOMC policy discussions were deemed worse.

Although it does not come through in Axilrod's discussion of monetary policymaking under Arthur Burns, there were higher-ups in the Economics Division who were tearing their hair over what Burns and the FOMC were doing in 1974-75. In one singular event, I received a Sunday morning phone call at home from a very high level economist asking me if I could intervene with the Chairman to get him to change the course of monetary policy! I guess the thought was that I was (a) trustworthy; (b) able to influence the notoriously cantankerous Dr. Burns; and (c) that Axilrod for whatever reasons was of no use. For better or worse, I was not in a position to intervene.

The results of Burns' monetary policy in that period, which was marked by the emergence of the OPEC cartel, were catastrophic. The nation entered a severe recession that certainly played a part in the fact that Gerald Ford was not elected President in 1976. While Axilrod doesn't say so in so many words, it appears that a principal contributing factor to the recession was the Fed's highly restrictive monetary policy, characterized by a steep plunge in M1 at a time when petroleum product prices were skyrocketing. (If you look carefully, you can see the path of M1 in the chart included as an appendix in the book.) This created a double-whammy for the economy, and it seems other people on Fed staff saw it coming but couldn't get the Chairman to alter course.

But, as Axilrod notes, the Fed's focus on the monetary aggregates was just beginning (and mainly forced by Chairman Wright Patman of the House Banking Committee) and it took a long time for the aggregates to become central to policymaking (that awaited Paul Volcker's arrival). In fact, as Chairman Burns testified repeatedly before Congress in those years, his preference was to assess a wide variety of economic indicia, and basically operate by the seat of the pants from one FOMC meeting to the next, without quite admitting it so bluntly to the congressional committees.

Today, as Axilrod notes, the monetary aggregates, long ago faded away as useful policy indicia, are replaced in the Bernanke era by--you guessed it--making it up as you go along.

This book may be inside baseball to a greater degree than any normal reader would care to follow, but for anyone interested in how a key part--monetary policymaking--of American government works, Steve Axilrod has provided an authoritative history that is unquestionably irreplaceable.

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Required reading for faculty, students and Washington appointees , April 7, 2009

By	JIB (Connecticut) - See all my reviews

Beautifully written, packed with insights you won't find anywhere else. Axilrod's unique experience as the consummate Fed insider shines a light on the human side of policymaking and leadership. He even breathes life into the arcane mechanics of monetary policy, far beyond what's available in any textbook yet easily understandable for a discerning reader. A gem!

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4 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Should be renamed - Outside the Fed!, April 6, 2009

By	Scott A. Powell "Smiley" (Hermosa Beach, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Don't be fooled by the title on this book. This book does not give you the real story on the Fed. This book doesn't mention one note that the Fed is actually a private corporate bank owned by none other than the Rothschild's and other European banking interests. This book is a diversion on the real truth, whether or not the author knows the truth himself is unknown but don't waste your money on this cloak and dagger piece of a trash.

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