News from the Fed

  • Information Regarding Recent Federal Reserve Actions
  • Comprehensive list of links to information related to recent Federal Reserve actions, including links to press releases, Federal Register notices, and other related information. Read more
  • Cleveland Fed Announces Appointments to Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh Boards and to the Federal Advisory Council
  • CLEVELAND - The Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland announced the following appointments to its main office and branch boards of directors and to the Federal Advisory Council. All appointments were effective January 1, 2009. Read more
  • FOMC Statement
  • The Federal Open Market Committee decided today to establish a target range for the federal funds rate of 0 to 1/4 percent. Read more
  • Federal Reserve Banks announce reduced number of check processing sites and accelerated restructuring schedule
  • The Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland will serve as the single paper check processing and adjustments site and the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta will serve as the single electronic check processing site for the Federal Reserve System. Read more
  • Federal Reserve Alert: Questionable Solicitations Directed at Consumers
  • These solicitations promise consumers access to personal loans through a nonexistent Federal Reserve lending program. Read more
  • Poverty in America: Federal Reserve Report Examines Diverse Locales, Common Challenges
  • "The Enduring Challenge of Concentrated Poverty: Case Studies from Communities Across the U.S.," looks at 16 distressed communities, including Cleveland’s Central neighborhood and Martin County, Kentucky. Read more
  • Agencies Encourage Participation in Treasury?s Capital Purchase Program
  • The federal banking and thrift regulatory agencies encourage all eligible institutions to use the Treasury Department’s Capital Purchase Program and the FDIC’s Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program.  (PDF)
  • Cleveland Fed Offers Mortgage Foreclosure Resource Center
  • This online resource will serve both as a central portal for the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland’s work on foreclosure, as well as a means of sharing tools and resources available nationally and regionally with homeowners and community development groups dealing with this issue. Read more
  • Learn from Past, Plan for Future: Central Bank’s Role in Financial Crises Is Focus of Cleveland Federal Reserve Annual Report
  • Central banks are responsible for fostering financial stability, and that role takes center stage during periods of financial turmoil, such as the subprime mortgage meltdown. The Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland’s 2007 Annual Report essay, “Central Banks & Crisis Management,” offers some lessons from the past that may help guide policymakers in planning ahead to manage future financial crises. Read more

Now in the Learning Center

Creative Writing ContestMoney, Money, Money?

Attention high school juniors and seniors, 2009 brings new prizes for the Creative Writing Contest. Read more

From President Pianalto

Sandra Pianalto, President and CEO, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland
Sandra Pianalto
President and CEO
Bio
11.14.08
The Credit Crisis and the Role of the Federal Reserve

All speeches
Consumer Help

Median Consumer Price Index

Median Consumer Price Index

Fed Funds Predictions

Fed Funds Predictions

Latest Economic Research

  • The Employment Situation
  • Yoonsoo Lee and Beth Mowry
  • December employment fell by 524,000, roughly meeting expectations and bringing the year’s total losses to 2.6 million. The revised numbers for October and November, coupled with December’s newly reported losses, reveal fourth–quarter 2008 declines exceeding 1.5 million jobs. The unemployment rate also jumped 0.4 percentage point from 6.8 to 7.2 percent in December, the highest rate since January 1993. Read more
  • A Focus on Quantitative Easing
  • John B Carlson and Sarah Wakefield
  • In an unprecedented move at its December 16 meeting, the FOMC decided to establish a target range for the federal funds rate of 0 to 0.25 percent. Open market operations and other measures have added greatly to the supply of the monetary base, which jumped from around $850 billion in late August to nearly $1.7 trillion on December 31. The doubling of the monetary base in such a short time highlights the fact that the Federal Reserve had already employed other available tools in dramatic fashion to support the functioning of financial markets. Read more
  • Understanding Ohio’s Land Bank Legislation
  • Thomas J Fitzpatrick IV
  • The effects of sustained high rates of foreclosure on numerous areas of Cuyahoga County have thrust land banking to the forefront of recent public policy discussions in Ohio. This Policy Discussion Paper seeks to inform those discussions by explaining the state’s current land banking system and by illustrating how the proposed system under Senate Bill 353/House Bill 602 (the Land Bank Bill) would work.  (PDF)
  • A New Role for the Exchange Stabilization Fund
  • Owen F Humpage
  • Recently, the U.S. Treasury announced a new, temporary insurance program for U.S. money-market mutual funds. To guarantee payment of these funds’ liabilities, the Treasury will use the assets of its Exchange Stabilization Fund. Created in the 1930s to stabilize the exchange value of the dollar, it has been tapped on occasion to supply loans to foreign countries in financial distress. This latest use of ESF assets is unlike anything the Fund has been used for before. Read more  (PDF)
  • Covered Bonds: A New Way to Fund Residential Mortgages
  • Ozgur Emre Ergungor
  • Like the now government-owned Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, large investment banks helped create funds to finance new mortgages by issuing securities backed by pools of existing mortgages. But private firms have abandoned these instruments, and with them a large source of mortgage funds has disappeared. Four large investment banks plan to create a new U.S. market for an old instrument, hoping to bring liquidity back to the mortgage market. Read more  (PDF)