jerome h powell : testimony at nomination hearing testimony by mr jerome h powell, chair of the board of governors of the federal reserve system, before the us senate committee on banking, housing, and urban affairs, washington dc, 11 january 2022. * * * chairman brown, ranking member toomey, and other members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. i would like to thank president biden for nominating me to serve a second term as chair of the board of governors of the federal reserve system. i would also like to thank my colleagues throughout the federal reserve system for their dedication, perseverance, and tireless work on behalf of the american people. their commitment and expertise were essential to the fed ’ s response to the covid - 19 crisis and remain vital to the implementation of monetary policy as our economy continues to progress. particular thanks go to my wife, elissa leonard, and our three children, susie, lucy, and sam. their love and support make possible everything i do. my five siblings are all watching, and we are thinking of each other and of our parents today with love and gratitude. four years ago, when i sat before this committee, few could have predicted the great challenges that would soon become ours to meet. on the eve of the pandemic, the u. s. economy was enjoying its 11th year of expansion, the longest on record. unemployment was at 50 - year lows, and the economic benefits were reaching those most on the margins. no obvious financial or economic imbalances threatened the ongoing expansion. but this attractive picture turned virtually overnight as the virus swept across the globe. the initial contraction was the fastest and deepest on record, but the pain could have been much worse. as the pandemic arrived, our immediate challenge was to stave off a full - scale depression, which would require swift and strong policy actions from across government. congress provided by far the fastest and largest response to any postwar economic downturn. at the federal reserve, we used the full range of policy tools at our disposal. we moved quickly to restore vital flows of credit to households, communities, and businesses and to stabilize the financial system. these collective policy actions, the development and availability of vaccines, and american resilience worked in concert, first to cushion the pandemic ’ s economic blows and then to spark a historically strong recovery. today the economy is expanding at its fastest pace in many years, and

elizabeth a duke : the housing market testimony by ms elizabeth a duke, member of the board of governors of the federal reserve system, before the committee on banking, housing, and urban affairs, us senate, washington dc, 28 february 2012. * * * chairman johnson, ranking member shelby, and members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to talk about the current situation in housing markets. the federal reserve has a keen interest in the state of housing and has been actively engaged in analyzing issues in the housing and mortgage markets. issues related to the housing market and housing finance are important factors in the federal reserve ’ s various roles in formulating monetary policy, regulating banks, and protecting consumers of financial services. in particular, the failure of the housing market to respond to lower interest rates as vigorously as it has in the past indicates that factors other than financial conditions may be restraining improvement in mortgage credit and housing market conditions and thus impeding the economic recovery. federal reserve staff have been actively working to understand the reasons behind the impairment in housing and mortgage markets and the tradeoffs involved in designing policies that would remove obstacles to normal market functioning. on january 4, 2012, the federal reserve released a staff paper titled “ the u. s. housing market : current conditions and policy considerations, ” which is attached at the end of my written statement. the paper provides information on current conditions in the housing market and analytic background on some housing market issues. although the paper does not include recommendations for any specific policy actions, it does lay out a framework for discussion by outlining some options and tradeoffs for policymakers to consider. my testimony today will be drawn from this paper. six years after aggregate house prices first began to decline, and more than two years after the start of the economic recovery, the housing market remains a significant drag on the u. s. economy. in a typical economic cycle, as the economy turns down households postpone purchases of durable goods such as housing. once the cycle bottoms out, improving economic prospects and diminishing uncertainty usually help unleash this pent - up demand. this upward demand pressure is often augmented by lower interest rates, to which housing demand is typically quite responsive. the current economic recovery has not followed this script, in part because the problems in the housing market are a cause of the downturn as well as a consequence of it. the extraordinary fall in national house prices has resulted in $ 7 trillion in lost home equity, more than half the amount that prevailed