The Young Fed

The Banking Crises of the 1920s and the Making of a Lender of Last Resort

By: Mark Carlson

Write A Review

eText | 23 January 2025

At a Glance

Format
ePUB

eText

$63.43

or 4 interest-free payments of $15.86 with

Instant online reading in your Booktopia eTextbook Library *

Why choose an eTextbook?

Instant Access *

Purchase and read your book immediately

Read Aloud

Listen and follow along as Bookshelf reads to you

Study Tools

Built-in study tools like highlights and more

* eTextbooks are not downloadable to your eReader or an app and can be accessed via web browsers only. You must be connected to the internet and have no technical issues with your device or browser that could prevent the eTextbook from operating.

A new history of crisis responses in the central bank's formative years.

The long-standing description of the Federal Reserve as a "lender of last resort" refers to the central bank's emergency liquidity provision for financial entities in periods of crisis. As Mark Carlson shows, this function was foundational to how the Fed was designed but has, at times, proven challenging to implement. The Young Fed examines the origins of the Federal Reserve's emergency liquidity provision which, along with the setting of monetary policy, has become a critical responsibility.

Focusing on the Fed's response to the financial crises of the 1920s, Carlson documents the formative deliberations of central bank policymakers regarding how to assist banks experiencing distress; the lessons that were learned; and how those lessons shaped subsequent policies. Carlson depicts an early Fed that experimented with a variety of approaches to crises, ranging from bold spectacles featuring cash-filled armored cars to behind-the-scenes interventions to prevent inducing panics or bank runs. The Young Fed weaves previously unpublished material from the Fed archives into a watershed work in American economic history: a deeply sourced account of how the world's most important central bank became a lender of last resort.