ECONOMICS
FEDERAL RESERVE
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Question
[CLICK ON ANY CHOICE TO KNOW THE RIGHT ANSWER]
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directly through price indexing.
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directly through government spending.
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indirectly through tax collections.
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indirectly through the money supply.
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Detailed explanation-1: -The Fed controls the supply of money by increas-ing or decreasing the monetary base. The monetary base is related to the size of the Fed’s balance sheet; specifically, it is currency in circulation plus the deposit balances that depository institutions hold with the Federal Reserve.
Detailed explanation-2: -The Fed can influence the money supply by modifying reserve requirements, which generally refers to the amount of funds banks must hold against deposits in bank accounts. By lowering the reserve requirements, banks are able to loan more money, which increases the overall supply of money in the economy.
Detailed explanation-3: -Influencing interest rates, printing money, and setting bank reserve requirements are all tools central banks use to control the money supply. Other tactics central banks use include open market operations and quantitative easing, which involve selling or buying up government bonds and securities.
Detailed explanation-4: -While the Fed’s control over the size of the monetary base is complete, its control over the money supply is not. One major reason for this is banks can choose to hold the additional base money (i.e., deposit balances with the Federal Reserve banks) supplied by the Fed as excess reserves.