Bessent Seeks to Reform Oversight of the Federal Reserve, with the Bank of England as a Reference Point

Deep Tide TechFlow News, March 26 — According to Jinshi Data, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen discussed strengthening the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s oversight of the Federal Reserve by drawing on some aspects of the Bank of England’s model. This move could shake up the relationship between the Fed and the U.S. government. An informed financial industry executive revealed that Yellen has expressed admiration for the reforms implemented by the UK government in 1997, when the Bank of England was granted operational independence in setting monetary policy. Although both central banks maintain formal independence from their respective governments, the Fed has greater autonomy in how it achieves Congress’s mandates for price stability and full employment, as well as in responding to financial instability. Yellen has publicly stated that the Fed should undergo reforms while maintaining its monetary policy independence. Last year, she published a 6,000-word article in International Economics criticizing the Fed’s large-scale bond-buying program (quantitative easing) as a “functional monetary policy experiment.” She also praised the Bank of England’s more cautious response to the 2022 UK debt crisis and contrasted it with the Fed’s continued quantitative easing. She believes the Fed’s quantitative easing policies contributed to the high inflation in the U.S. following the COVID-19 pandemic.