In normal times, the U.S. Treasury decides how to manage its debt and the Federal Reserve sets monetary policy. However, with the onset of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, the functions of the Federal Reserve and Treasury began to blur. A new paper by Harvard’s Robin Greenwood, Samuel G. Hanson, Joshua S. Rudolph, and Lawrence Summers, the former U.S. Treasury secretary and former director of the National Economic Council examines government debt management policy in an era with extraordinary monetary policy. Click through the interactive below to see how the Federal Reserve and Treasury have been pushing in opposite directions.
Read the full paper and download its one-page summary »