Movements · us_fed_qe_2008_2014 US Fed quantitative easing USA · 2008 – 2014· Fed under Bernanke → Yellen; bipartisan tolerance
Leaders: Ben Bernanke · Janet Yellen · Timothy Geithner (Treasury early)
Doctrine — stated goals and content Unconventional monetary policy: large-scale asset purchases (QE1-3), zero interest rate policy (ZIRP), forward guidance. Prevented 2008-09 financial collapse from becoming depression; Fed balance sheet expanded from ~$900B (2008) to ~$4.5T (2014). Cited in D.1.5 scope statement: produced asset price inflation but NOT severe consumer price inflation — key empirical update to ABCT predictions.
Policy-content fingerprint — how the framework codes this movement on its axes ↑
monetary expansion direction → monetary.monetary_expansion_direction
Direction of monetary-base expansion decisions relative to trend. Separate from fiscal.transfer_expansion even when correlated.
increased · strong
expansionary (balance sheet, rates lower than Taylor)
Fed balance sheet 5x growth over period.
↑
central bank independence → monetary.central_bank_independence
De jure and de facto independence of the central bank from fiscal authority. Per D.1.5 scope, one of the framework's defensible monetary positions.
increased · moderate
greater independence (legal, operational, personnel)
Expanded CB operational space; some political pushback.
Policies enacted · us_qe1_2008 · us_qe2_2010 · us_qe3_2012 · us_zirp_2008_2015 · us_forward_guidance What the data says — linked outcome hypotheses The movement's outcome claims are tied to these hypotheses. Verdicts update as models run.
m2_expansion_correlates_with_asset_price_inflation partial — Housing leg met the >=6/10 + positive-mean thresholds but equities did not. Equities: 5/9 non-negative, mean lag-1 corr = +0.198. Housing: 6/10 non-negative, mean = +0.108. Spec's asymmetry clause is consistent with this outcome but the symmetric-claim formulation is not fully supported.
Schools of thought aligned or opposed opposed austrian Predicted inflation that didn't arrive on schedule; empirical update in D.1.5.
References Bernanke, The Courage to Act (2015) Gagnon et al. (2011), Fed staff working paper on QE IESET — an empirically-grounded, adversarially-reviewed framework for contemporary economic policy questions. Every hypothesis pre-registered in git before the data is examined.