Closing remarks : the Greenspan era : lessons for the future

Greenspan, Alan ; Monetary policy

The role of capital in optimal banking supervision and regulation

This paper was the keynote address at the conference "Financial services at the crossroads: capital regulation in the twenty-first century." The conference, held at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on February 26-27, 1998, was designed to encourage a consensus between the public and private sectors on an agenda for capital regulation in the new century.Bank capital ; Bank supervision

Opening remarks : the Greenspan era : lessons for the future

Greenspan, Alan ; Monetary policy

Central bank perspectives on stabilization policy

For some time, the use of monetary and fiscal policies to smooth business cycle fluctuations has taken a back seat to longer term objectives of restoring price stability and fiscal balance. More recently, however, weaker economic performance in some of the world’s economies, most notably in Japan and the United States, has led to renewed interest in the use of short-run stabilization policy. ; This year the bank’s economic policy symposium, “Rethinking Stabilization Policy,” explored the potential scope for stabilization policy in this new environment. The papers presented at the symposium and the ensuing discussion focused on a number of key issues including: reasons for the renewed interest in stabilization policy, the effectiveness and limitations of stabilization policy, and whether the use of short-run stabilization policy conflicts with the pursuit of longer term macroeconomic objectives. ; The articles included in this special issue of the Economic Review provide perspectives on stabilization policy from five prominent central bank officials: Alan Greenspan, Otmar Issing, Guillermo Ortiz, Yukata Yamaguchi, and David Dodge. As these articles suggest, policymakers in different countries clearly share a common set of core values that guide policy. At the same time, monetary policy decisions must also be tailored to the unique circumstances of individual countries. Viewed individually, each of these presentations is highly interesting and informative. Taken together, they provide a broad perspective on the challenges facing policymakers in a changing economic environment.Monetary policy ; Fiscal policy

Address: job insecurity and technology

Technology ; Employment (Economic theory)

The Crisis

macroeconomics, global bubble, reform, regulation, risk management, subprime mortgage, crisis, interest

The New Tax Law: The Future of Private Enterprise and Entrepreneurship

This is an excerpt from a speech by Alan Greenspan related to the future of private enterprise and entrepreneurship. Greenspan talks about the 1987 tax law passed by Congress, and this history of tax law in the United States leading up to this point

Alan Greenspan The Age of Turbulence : Adventures in a New World

"This book is in part a detective story. After 9/11 I knew, if I needed further reinforcement, that we are living in a new world - the world of a global capitalist economy that is vastly more flexible, resilient, open, self-correcting, and fast-changing than it was even a quarter century earlier. It\u27s a world that presents us with enormous new possibilities but also enormous new challenges. The Age of Turbulence is my attempt to understand the nature of this new world: how we got here, what we\u27re living through, and what lies over the horizon, for good and for ill. Where possible, I convey my understanding in the context of my own experiences. I do this out of a sense of responsibility to the historical record, and so that listeners will know where I\u27m coming from. "The book is therefore divided in halves: the first half is my effort to retrace the arc of my learning curve, and the second half is a more objective effort to use this as the foundation on which to erect a conceptual framework for understanding the new global economy. Along the way I explore critical elements of this emerging global environment: the principles governing it; the vast energy infrastructure that powers it; the global financial imbalances and dramatic shifts in world demographics that threaten it; and, despite its unquestioned success, the chronic concern over the justice of the distribution of its rewards. Finally, I bring together what we can reasonably conjecture about the makeup of the world economy in 2030. "I don\u27t pretend to know all the answers. But from my vantage point at the Federal Reserve, I had privileged access to the best that had been thought and said on a wide range of subjects. I have not been inhibited in reaching for some fairly sweeping hypotheses." -Alan Greenspa

Implications for Policy

macroeconomics, tax-based income policy, TIP, economic stability, economic growth

The Constitutional Exercise of the Federal Police Power: A Functional Approach to Federalism

The Employee Polygraph Protection Act of 19881 (Polygraph Act) prohibits the use of polygraph examinations by private employers actively participating in commerce or producing goods for interstate commerce. Prior to this federal action, forty-one states had addressed the issue of employer use of polygraph examinations. Twelve states and the District of Columbia prohibit employer use of polygraph tests altogether. Of the remaining states, some require licensing of examiners and others regulate the circumstances under which an employer may require polygraph examination of an employee. According to the legislative history, federal legislation is necessary because state regulations are ineffective: existing state statutes are not enforced and employers circumvent state laws by pressuring employees into volunteering for the tests or by administering the tests in states without regulations.4 Congress concluded that a uniform national policy was needed to eliminate the use of polygraph examinations in the workplace.\u27The Polygraph Act is justified as an exercise of the power granted to Congress by the interstate commerce clause of the United States Constitution.\u27 Modern commerce clause doctrine has become known as the rational basis test because it permits federal regulation of any activity that Congress reasonably concludes has a substantial effect on interstate commerce.\u27 Since 1937, when the United States Supreme Court began using the rational basis test, only one legislative effort has been held to be beyond the scope of the federal commerce power, and that holding was recently overruled.8 In both theory and practice the interstate commerce clause has evolved into the primary source of federal power over individual conduct... Part Two reviews the evolution of the commerce power from its origins at the Constitutional Convention through the major cases of this century out of which the modern interpretation has developed. Part Ill addresses the actual threat posed by federal usurpation of state authority by examining the continued value of state governments in an age when technological advances blur state lines and homogenize the population. Part IV proposes to confine the exercise of federal police power to situations in which the commerce clause forbids or compromises state regulation. Part V concludes by suggesting that the Supreme Court must resume its traditional role as protector of individual rights by defining meaningful limits on federal power