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The Fed’s Triple Mandate Problem: It’s Time to End the Confusion

The Fed’s Triple Mandate Problem: It’s Time to End the Confusion
The Federal Reserve building in Washington, in a file photo. Adam Parent/Shutterstock
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Commentary

What is the Federal Reserve’s job? The standard answer is to maintain full employment and stable prices. This is what economists and commentators mean when they talk about the “dual mandate.” But there’s a problem—as a matter of law, the Fed’s mandate has three parts, not two.

Alexander W. Salter
Alexander W. Salter
Author
Alexander William Salter is the Georgie G. Snyder Associate Professor of Economics in the Rawls College of Business and the Comparative Economics Research Fellow with the Free Market Institute, both at Texas Tech University. He is a co-author of “Money and the Rule of Law: Generality and Predictability in Monetary Institutions,” published by Cambridge University Press. In addition to his numerous scholarly articles, he has published nearly 300 opinion pieces in leading national outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, National Review, Fox News Opinion, and The Hill. Salter earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in Economics at George Mason University and his B.A. in Economics at Occidental College. He was an AIER Summer Fellowship Program participant in 2011.
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