The Financial System: The Federal Reserve System

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The Federal Reserve System consists of three basic tools for maintaining control over the supply of money and credit in the economy. The most important is open market operations, and it is also known as the buying and selling of government securities. To increase the supply of money, the Federal Reserve buys government securities from banks, other businesses, or individuals, paying for them with a check; when the Fed 's checks are deposited in banks, they create new reserves , a portion of which banks can lend or invest, in this way they increase the amount of money in circulation. On the other hand, if the Fed wants to decrease the money supply, it sells government bonds to banks, collecting reserves from them. Because they have lower reserves,