Foreign Currency Operations 

The Federal Reserve conducts foreign currency operations (i.e. the buying and selling of dollars in exchange for foreign currency) under the direction of the FOMC, acting in close and continuous consultation and cooperation with the U.S. Treasury, which has overall responsibility for U.S. international financial policy. The manager of the System Open Market Account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York acts as the agent for both the FOMC and the Treasury in carrying out foreign currency operations. Since the late 1970s, the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve have conducted almost all foreign currency operations jointly and equally.

The purpose of Federal Reserve foreign currency operations has evolved in response to changes in the international monetary system. The most important of these changes was the transition in the 1970s from a system of fixed exchange rates (established in 1944 at an international monetary conference held in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire) to a system of flexible (or floating) exchange rates for the dollar in terms of other countries’ currencies. Under the Bretton Woods Agreements, which created the IMF and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (known informally as the World Bank), foreign authorities were responsible for intervening in exchange markets to maintain their countries’ exchange rates within 1 percent of their currencies’ parities with the U.S. dollar; direct exchange market intervention by U.S. authorities was extremely limited. Instead, U.S. authorities were obliged to buy and sell dollars against gold to maintain the dollar price of gold near $35 per ounce. After the United States suspended the gold convertibility of the dollar in 1971, a regime of flexible exchange rates emerged; in 1973, under that regime, the United States began to intervene in exchange markets on a more significant scale. In 1978, the regime of flexible exchange rates was codified in an amendment to the IMF’s Articles of Agreement.

Under flexible exchange rates, the main aim of Federal Reserve foreign currency operations has been to counter disorderly conditions in exchange markets through the purchase or sale of foreign currencies (called foreign exchange intervention operations), primarily in the New York market. During some episodes of downward pressure on the foreign exchange value of the dollar, the Federal Reserve has purchased dollars (sold foreign currency) and has thereby absorbed some of the selling pressure on the dollar. Similarly, the Federal Reserve may sell dollars (purchase foreign currency) to counter upward pressure on the dollar’s foreign exchange value. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York also executes transactions in the U.S. foreign exchange market for foreign monetary authorities, us­ing their funds.

In the early 1980s, the United States curtailed its official exchange market operations, although it remained ready to enter the market when necessary to counter disorderly conditions. In 1985, particularly after September, when representatives of the five major industrial countries reached the Plaza Agreement on exchange rates, the United States began to use exchange market intervention as a policy instrument more frequently. Between 1985 and 1995, the Federal Reserve,sometimes in coordination with other central banks,intervened to counter dollar movements that were perceived as excessive. Based on an assessment of past experience with official intervention and a reluctance to let exchange rate issues be seen as a major focus of monetary policy, U.S. authorities have intervened only rarely since 1995.

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