The Economist explains

The Federal Reserve system

By H.C.

WHEN the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee (FOMC) decides whether to raise interest rates at the meeting starting on June 14th, representatives of the Fed’s regional branches will cast half of the ten votes. Unlike Janet Yellen, the Fed’s chair, Stanley Fischer, her deputy, or three other sitting Fed “governors”, these regional Fed “presidents” were not nominated by the White House, nor confirmed by Congress, but were elected within their respective institutions. This is not without controversy. Conspiracy theorists claim that the regional Fed banks are a “banking cartel”; more sober critics, like Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, say regional Feds give commercial banks too much power. So how does it work?

Most modern economies have just one central bank, empowered by the government. That America’s central bank is more complex is the result of a series of political compromises struck in 1913, when the Fed was formed, and then again in 1935, when it was reorganised. At the time, politicians had to win over bankers who were sceptical about centralising monetary authority in Washington, DC. “The regional banks are the states and the Federal Reserve Board is the congress”, said Senator Carter Glass, one of the Fed’s architects (better known for the Glass-Steagall Act, which separated investment banking from retail banking until 1999). Commercial banks would themselves capitalise each regional Fed and appoint two-thirds of its directors. In turn, the directors would elect a president who, on a rotating basis, would assume one of five voting seats on the FOMC, which sets interest rates for the whole country. The system was designed so that the governors in Washington have a majority on the FOMC. But politicians have been getting slower at filling governor vacancies. Regional Feds’ representation has therefore been growing since Ronald Reagan’s presidency, according to a new history of the Fed by Peter Conti-Brown of the University of Pennsylvania. Today, the regional presidents match the governors for voting power, because two seats on the FOMC sit empty.

Membership in the Fed was voluntary until 1980. To encourage banks to join—which meant investing capital in the Fed—banks were compensated with a risk-free return of 6%. The payment endured when Fed membership became compulsory; in 2015 the Fed shelled out $1.7 billion. At the end of the year, Congress voted to cut the dividend for the 70 largest banks, which have assets exceeding $10 billion. These big banks, who own the majority of the Fed’s capital, now get only the ten-year Treasury yield (currently about 1.7%). But roughly 1,900 smaller banks still receive the full 6%. Banks holding shares issued before 1942 receive their dividends tax-free.

Since the financial crisis, politicians have scrutinised the influence of commercial banks in regional Feds, whose most important function today is to regulate banks in their district. Bankers on regional Fed boards are not directly responsible for regulation—it is not quite true that “foxes guard the henhouse”, as Bernie Sanders claims—but they are too close for comfort. Hillary Clinton wants to remove them. In 2010 the Dodd-Frank law stripped the three bankers on each board of the right to vote for a regional Fed’s president. But banks also appoint three outside directors who can still vote (the remaining three directors are appointed in Washington, DC). And bankers can still take part in a vote to dismiss a regional Fed president. This is worrying from a monetary policy as well as regulatory standpoint, because banks are thought to profit from higher interest rates. Since 1936 nearly three-quarters of hawkish dissents on the FOMC have come from regional Fed presidents. The conspiracy theorists are wrong: the Fed is no cartel. But it would be better off without the bankers.

Explore our A to Z of economics

More from The Economist explains

How art is used against artists, like Young Thug, in court

Rap music, more than any other creative form, is used as evidence of other crimes

Could the Democrats replace Joe Biden as their presidential candidate?

Worries about his chances of re-election are growing


Why the price of olive oil is soaring

Climate change, export controls and soaring fertiliser costs leave a bitter taste