Reflections on the strategy of monetary policy

The President of the Richmond Fed argues that: [1] price stability ought to be the overriding goal of monetary policy; [2] procedures for controlling the money supply need to be improved; and [3] monetary policy must be prepared to respond promptly to inflationary pressures.Monetary policy

In support of price stability

Testimony by the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond in support of House Joint Resolution 409. That bill, sponsored by Rep. Stephen Neal (D-NC) would require the Federal Reserve to achieve zero inflation within five years of passage.Inflation (Finance) ; Monetary policy

The Fed's mandate : help or hindrance?

The Federal Reserve System is faced with a myriad of objectives in the area of monetary policy: some people believe the Fed should use monetary policy to keep interest rates low, other think the primary goal should be to increase business activity and decrease unemployment, and still others feel the Fed’s proper role is to promote price stability. In his speech, “The Fed’s Mandate: Help or Hindrance?”, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond President Robert P. Black argues that this multitude of objectives weakens monetary policy by preventing the Fed from pursuing a more limited but more attainable long-run program. Black asserts that, contrary to popular belief, the present abundance of objectives decreases the Fed’s independence by subjecting it to intense pressures from competing interest groups, each advocating one particular goal. Price stability, he contends, is the only feasible long-run objective for monetary policy. Black concludes by saying that the best way to achieve permanent price stability is to lower the growth rate of the money supply to a steady noninflationary rate and keep it there.Federal Reserve System ; Monetary policy

Reflections on deposit insurance

A crucial public policy issue is the need for reform of the nation’s deposit insurance system. This article discusses the role of deposit insurance and outlines some proposals for reform.Bank deposits ; Deposit insurance

Monetary policy - the possible and the impossible

An abstract for this article is not available.Monetary policy

Role of orientation reference selection in motion sickness

Previous experiments with moving platform posturography have shown that different people have varying abilities to resolve conflicts among vestibular, visual, and proprioceptive sensory signals used to control upright posture. In particular, there is one class of subjects with a vestibular disorder known as benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV) who often are particularly sensitive to inaccurate visual information. That is, they will use visual sensory information for the control of their posture even when that visual information is inaccurate and is in conflict with accurate proprioceptive and vestibular sensory signals. BPPV has been associated with disorders of both posterior semicircular canal function and possibly otolith function. The present proposal hopes to take advantage of the similarities between the space motion sickness problem and the sensory orientation reference selection problems associated with the BPPV syndrome. These similarities include both etiology related to abnormal vertical canal-otolith function, and motion sickness initiating events provoked by pitch and roll head movements. The objectives of this proposal are to explore and quantify the orientation reference selection abilities of subjects and the relation of this selection to motion sickness in humans