A Brief Illustrated History of the Federal Reserve’s Balance Sheet

Ruth A. Judson and Colin Weiss
Additional contact information
Ruth A. Judson: https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/ruth-a-judson.htm
Colin Weiss: https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/colin-r-weiss.htm

No 2026-02-13-3, FEDS Notes from Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.)

Abstract: The size of the Federal Reserve's balance expanded dramatically from 2008 to 2022 and has recently begun to adjust as the Fed moves toward a policy of "ample" reserves. While this expansion was unprecedented in its speed and came after a long period of stability, the Federal Reserve's balance sheet has risen and fallen and changed in composition over time. This note provides a graphical review of the evolution of the balance sheet from the Fed's founding in 1914 through 2025, with particular emphasis on how the balance sheet changed as the gold standard ended in the early 1970s, as the Fed shifted to interest-rate targeting in the early 1990s, and as the Fed responded to the 2008 financial crisis.

Date: 2026-02-13
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/feds- ... -sheet-20260213.html Full text (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fip:fedgfn:102802

DOI: 10.17016/2380-7172.4006

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in FEDS Notes from Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Ryan Wolfslayer ; Keisha Fournillier ().