The Federal Reserve

Robert L. Hetzel is a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, a senior affiliated scholar at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, and a fellow in the Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise at Johns Hopkins University. His most recent books include The Monetary Policy of the Federal Reserve: A History and The Great Recession: Market Failure or Policy Failure?.

"A new and critical history of one of America's most important institutions In The Federal Reserve System: A New History, Robert Hetzel draws on a 43-year career as an economist in the central bank to trace the influence of the Fed on the American economy. Hetzel compares period in which the Fed stabilized the economy and period in which it destabilized the the economy. He draws lessons about what monetary rule is stabilizing. Recast through this lens and enriched with archival materials, Hetzel's sweeping history offers new understanding of the bank's watershed moments since 1913. They include critical accounts of the Great Depression, the Great Inflation, and the Great Recession, all of which were avoidable. The Federal Reserve System: A New History arrives as a critical history for a critical moment. It promises to recast our understanding of the central bank in its second century"