Financial Crises

Audio

Media Conference Call: Benn Steil on Federal Reserve Exit Strategy

Speaker: Benn Steil
Presider: Michelle Caruso-Cabrera

The prospective challenge of containing inflation, buttressing a collapsed housing market, and normalizing the Federal Reserve's bloated balance sheet has created an "exit strategy" dilemma for Chairman Ben Bernanke. CFR Director of International Economics Benn Steil urges the Federal Reserve to swap mortgage-backed securities with the U.S. Treasury in exchange for Treasury securities, which the Fed can then sell as part of a normal process of monetary tightening.

See more in United States, Financial Crises

Transcript

Media Conference Call: Benn Steil on Federal Reserve Exit Strategy

Speaker: Benn Steil
Presider: Michelle Caruso-Cabrera

CFR Director of International Economics Benn Steil urges the Federal Reserve to swap mortgage-backed securities with the U.S. Treasury in exchange for Treasury securities, which the Fed can then sell as part of a normal process of monetary tightening as a solution for the prospective challenge of containing inflation, buttressing a collapsed housing market, and normalizing its bloated balance sheet.

See more in United States, Financial Crises

Op-Ed

Bernanke Should Follow the Advice He Gave to Japan

Authors: Benn Steil and Dinah Walker
Wall Street Journal

Benn Steil and Dinah Walker explain why the Fed's massive holdings of mortgage-backed securities (MBS) are distorting its thinking about the conduct of monetary policy going forward. They propose a novel plan to rectify this, in which the Fed swaps its MBS with the Treasury in return for Treasury securities, which the Fed can sell as part of a normal "exit" from monetary stimulus.

See more in United States, Economics, Financial Crises

Ask CFR Experts

How long will it take southern Europe to rebound from the eurozone crisis, and how will that affect the rest of Europe?

Asked by Jackson Ryan, from King HS

The debt crisis that has hammered southern Europe since 2010 will have long-lived economic effects, despite the moderation in Spanish and Italian government borrowing costs since the European Central Bank's "Outright Monetary Transactions" initiative last September.

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See more in Western Europe, EU, Economics, Financial Crises, EU, IMF

Ask CFR Experts

Where do you see Brazil in 2020? As a country with the lowest growth rates among the BRICS, is the dream over for Brazil?

Asked by Fagner Dantas, from Universidade Federal da Bahia

The Brazilian government faces a number of challenges and opportunities concerning its economic forecast in the coming years. After peaking at 7.5 percent growth in 2010, Brazil's recent economic slowdown has caused worry that the dream of a new high-growth economy had slipped out of reach.

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See more in Brazil, Economics, Economic Development, Emerging Markets, Financial Crises, Geoeconomics

Interview

A Growth Strategy for Greece

George Papandreou interviewed by Christopher Alessi

The EU and IMF should loosen the austerity requirements of Greece's bailout package to allow the indebted country to implement needed growth-enhancing policies, says former prime minister George Papandreou.

See more in Greece, Financial Crises, EU