NBER Publications by Owen Humpage

The present set of arrangements for U.S. exchange market intervention policy was largely developed after 1961 during the Bretton Woods era. However, that set had important historical precedents. In this paper we examine precedents to current arrangements, focusing on three historical eras: pre-1934 operations; the Exchange Stabilization Fund operations beginning in 1934; and the Bretton Woods era. We describe operations by the Second Bank of the United States in the pre-Civil War period and then operations by the U.S. Treasury in the post-Civil War period. After establishment of the Federal Reserve in 1914, the New York Fed engaged in isolated exchange market policies in the 1920s and 1930s, first under the direction of the Governor Benjamin Strong until his death in 1928, thereafter, unde...