Monetary authority is a generic term in finance and economics for the entity which controls the money supply of a given currency, and has the right to set interest rates, and other parameters which control the cost and availability of money. Generally a monetary authority is a central bank, though often the executive branch of a government has de facto control over monetary policy by controlling the central bank. There are other arrangements, for example democratic governance of monetary policy, a central bank for several nations, a currency board which restricts currency issuance to the amount of another currency, free banking where a broad range of entities can issue notes or coin.
Famous quotes containing the words monetary and/or authority:
“There is no legislation—I care not what it is—tariff, railroads, corporations, or of a general political character, that all equals in importance the putting of our banking and currency system on the sound basis proposed in the National Monetary Commission plan.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“Contact with men who wield power and authority still leaves an intangible sense of repulsion. It’s very like being in close proximity to faecal matter, the faecal embodiment of something unmentionable, and you wonder what it is made of and when it acquired its historically sacred character.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)