Central Banks, Monetary Policy and Financial Stability

Upon completion of this course, you will be able to understand:
Functions and objectives of central banks.
Features of an effective central bank.
Fiscal challenges for central banks.
The structure of the Federal Reserve System.
The effectives of the Federal Reserve System.
The structure of the Eurosystem.
The euro-area crisis and the European Central Bank (ECB).
The central bank’s balance sheet.
Changing the size and mix of the balance sheet.
The deposit expansion multiplier.
The monetary base and the money supply.
Federal Reserve and ECB conventional policy tools.
Simple guides for policy setting.
Unconventional policy tools.
Links between exchange rates and monetary policy.
The mechanics of exchange-rate management.
Costs, benefits, and risks of fixed exchange rates.
Fixed exchange-rate regimes.

Central bank staff; those who wish to survey what central banks do and how they do it; those who wish to understand the role and objectives of central banks; those who wish to be equipped with the knowledge that will be required to cope with the inevitable changes that will occur in central bank structure.