Federal Reserve

The Federal Reserve is the central bank of the United States; it serves as a banking institution for commercial banks to use and a way for the government to influence financial activity. A commercial bank is a private bank primarily concerned with maximizing its revenue by holding deposits and making loans and investments with a portion of those deposits. Congress created the Federal Reserve, which officially began when President Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act on December 23, 1913. The main goal of the Federal Reserve Act was to help the burgeoning country stabilize its currency. The Federal Reserve Act instituted many elements of policy, including the responsibilities of individual private banks, loans, the use of bonds, and other services. A bond is a financial instrument representing a loan made to a governmental or corporate body by some entity that requires repayment of the initial loan price plus interest on a fixed schedule.

The main purpose of the Federal Reserve is to regulate monetary policy. The three goals that the Federal Reserve aims to achieve are maximum sustainable employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates. The majority of work the Federal Reserve performs is deciding long-term interest rates and working to achieve the goal of price stability. Price stability is a state in which prices do not change much over time and there is little inflation or deflation. Through monetary policy, the Federal Reserve seeks to ensure that the country attains optimal rates of employment and economic growth; it does this by influencing the interest rate, which in turn affects households' purchasing habits, which affects the production of goods and services (which increases employment to react to increase in production). The Federal Reserve is also in charge of overseeing and regulating banks to achieve maximum stability, encouraging consumer confidence in commercial banking. These were important needs during the early 1900s, a financially volatile time, and are still important today.

Another central mission of the Federal Reserve is to function as a bank for depository institutions. A depository institution is a financial institution legally allowed to accept monetary deposits from customers. Banks, credit unions, and savings and loan associations are examples of financial institutions. Just as individuals' banks enable them to cash checks, the Federal Reserve performs a parallel function for the federal government and other large institutions. Most countries have national banking systems similar to the Federal Reserve, but these are most often simply called "central banks."