“I want to make sure you keep your eyes on the ball, that is, the two basic missions of a central bank. The first is maintaining macroeconomic stability: maintaining stable growth and keeping inflation low and stable. The principal policy tool for maintaining macroeconomic stability is monetary policy. In normal times, the Fed and other central banks use open market operations—purchases and sales of securities in markets—to move interest rates up or down, and in doing so try to create a more stable macroeconomic environment.
The second part of a central bank's mission is maintaining financial stability. Central banks are focused on trying to ensure that the financial system functions properly, and in particular, they want to prevent, if possible, and if not, to mitigate the effects of a financial crisis or a financial panic.”

—  Ben Bernanke

Lecture 2: The Federal Reserve after World War II
The Federal Reserve and the Financial Crisis (2012)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I want to make sure you keep your eyes on the ball, that is, the two basic missions of a central bank. The first is mai…" by Ben Bernanke?
Ben Bernanke photo
Ben Bernanke 10
American economist 1953

Related quotes

Rab Butler photo
Cyril Ramaphosa photo

“The manifesto had a paragraph on a wish and an aspiration, acknowledging that the Reserve Bank is independent and that there is no intention whatsoever to tamper or tinker with the independence of the central bank. The wish that is expressed is, that as it goes ahead with monetary policy machinations, it will keep an eye on employment.”

Cyril Ramaphosa (1952) 5th President of South Africa

Answering a question by JSE chairperson Nyembezi-Heita in Rosebank, on the eve of the World Economic Forum in Davos, as quoted by Carien du Plessis in Ramaphosa and Magashule contradict each other on Reserve Bank nationalisation https://www.msn.com/en-za/money/politics/ramaphosa-and-magashule-contradict-each-other-on-reserve-bank-nationalisation/ar-BBSjJd5?ocid=spartanntp, Daily Maverick (17 January 2019)

Ron Paul photo

“Question: …you believe the Fed shouldn't exist… make the case.
Ron Paul: First reason is, it's not authorized in the Constitution, it's an illegal institution. The second reason, it's an immoral institution, because we have delivered to a secretive body the privilege of creating money out of thin air; if you or I did it, we'd be called counterfeiters, so why have we legalized counterfeiting? But the economic reasons are overwhelming: the Federal Reserve is the creature that destroys value. This station talks about free market capitalism, and you can't have free market capitalism if you have a secret bank creating money and credit out of thin air. They become the central planners, they decide what interest rates should be, what the supply of money should be…
Question: How does the gold standard solves that?
Ron Paul: It maintains a stable currency and a stable value. If the Fed concentrated more on stable money rather than stable prices… They push up new money in stocks and in commodities and in houses, and then they have to come in to rescue the situation. They create the bubbles, then they come in and rescue it, and they do nothing more than try to do price fixing. Capitalism depends, and capital comes from savings, but there's no savings in this country, so this is all artificial. It creates the misdirection and the malinvestment and all the excessive debt, and it always has to have a correction. Since the Fed has been in existence, the dollar has lost about 97% of its value. You're supposed to encourage savings, but if something loses its value, why save dollars? There's no encouragement whatsoever. […] Gold is 6000 years old, and it still maintains its purchasing power. Oil prices really are very stable in terms of Gold. […] Both conservatives and liberals want to enhance big government, and this is a seductive way to tax the middle class.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

CNBC debate with Faiz Shakir, March 20, 2008 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k94VWPjUQSM
2000s, 2006-2009

Ben Bernanke photo
Murray N. Rothbard photo
James Tobin photo

“There is no reason to think that the impact [of monetary policy] will be captured in any single [variable]…, whether it is a monetary stock or a market interest rate.”

James Tobin (1918–2002) American economist

Source: "A general equilibrium approach to monetary theory" (1969), p. 29 as cited in: Andrés, Javier, J. David López-Salido, and Edward Nelson. " Tobin's imperfect asset substitution in optimizing general equilibrium http://research.stlouisfed.org/wp/2004/2004-003.pdf." Journal of Money, Credit and Banking (2004): 665-690.

Olivier Blanchard photo
Nigel Lawson photo

Related topics