McFadden Act

  

Categories: Regulations

Banks fall under a complex web of regulation. Many banks (especially these days) are giant, nation-wide behemoths. Others just have a few branches scattered across a limited geographic area.

As such, there has always been tension over national vs. state control when it comes to banks. (For you history buffs, we'll just name-check McCulloch v. Maryland and Andrew Jackson's bank war.)

The McFadden Act fits into this theme. The federal law, passed in 1927, gave states the ability to govern bank branches located within the state. So even if a bank has a national presence, the individual branches located in a state would fall under state jurisdiction.

It may sound like the McFadden Act was an attack on national banks, adding another regulatory headache that would impede their growth. But it was actually passed as a way to boost the ability of national banks to expand.

McFadden made it easier for national banks to open branches (because there was now a clear regulatory framework), helping these companies compete with state-based rivals.

Related or Semi-related Video

Econ: What are Reserve Requirements, Exc...19 Views

00:00

And finance Allah shmoop What our reserve requirements excess reserves

00:06

and the multiple expansion of deposits in the US The

00:12

Fed a k a The Federal Reserve a k a

00:14

The central bank keeps a watchful eye on reserve banks

00:18

who keep a watchful eye on commercial banks So yes

00:21

there's a whole hierarchy If the Fed is like a

00:24

royal family well then reserve banks or dukes and duchesses

00:27

and the commercial banks are aristocrats The Fed requires banks

00:31

to meet reserve requirements also known as the cash reserve

00:36

ratio which is the amount of money banks have to

00:38

keep on hand Handy Dandy Ready for quick withdrawal Why

00:41

is this a rule Well part of what spawned the

00:44

Fed into existence in the first place was a siri's

00:47

of runs on banks from banking panics A run on

00:50

the bank is when everyone rushes to their bank and

00:53

demands all of their deposits back Now the thing is

00:57

one of the boys banks make money is by lending

00:59

out your money to other people Yep your money Your

01:02

deposit for banks to make the most money possible Well

01:05

they would lend out as much money as they could

01:08

which in theory would be all of it But then

01:09

that leaves you the deposit or without cash when you

01:13

need it The Fed wanted runs on banks to be

01:15

a thing of the past which they pretty much are

01:17

now so they made these reserve requirements The money that

01:20

banks are allowed to loan out are called the excess

01:23

reserve For instance a bank may be required to have

01:26

say ten percent of its total money on hand which

01:29

would mean the remaining ninety per cent of the money

01:31

is excess reserves which banks can lend out to turn

01:34

a profit Now here's where the magic happens Multiple expansion

01:38

of deposit Well multiple expansion of deposits is the theory

01:42

that each deposit into a bank creates additional money made

01:45

from excess reserve deposit as they are well continuously lent

01:50

out by banks and then re deposited in other banks

01:53

There's a literal multiplier effect that ripples outward into the

01:56

economy called the Deposit Expansion Multi a buyer which estimates

02:01

the maximum amount of money that the Fed could expect

02:03

in deposit injection into the economic system that you know

02:08

they were kind of creating and managing Well this is

02:10

how the Fed the controller of the money supply decides

02:13

how much new money toe pump into the economy and

02:16

the maximum effect they could possibly expect from that injection

02:20

of money into the system For instance let's say your

02:23

bank has a ten percent reserve requirement leaving ninety percent

02:26

in excess reserves Well when that money is lent out

02:29

whether to a consumer or a business it's deposited into

02:32

another bank eventually So let's say you deposited two thousand

02:37

dollars check into your bank account in your bank says

02:39

would be and it lends out ninety percent of it

02:41

which is eighteen hundred box right that other two hundred

02:43

dollars they were going to keep on hand for reserve

02:46

requirements Okay so let's say that eighteen hundred dollars is

02:48

linked to a climber Chris who's keen on climbing Mount

02:52

Everest climber Chris deposits that eighteen hundred dollars into his

02:55

bank account Clymer Chris's bank says would be just like

02:59

your bank and they do the same thing that bank

03:01

lens Ninety percent of the eighteen hundred dollars which is

03:04

sixteen hundred twenty bucks The remaining ten percent that hundred

03:07

eighty is kept at Climber Chris's Bank to meet reserve

03:10

requirements Well Climate Chris Bank then lends out six hundred

03:13

twenty dollars to teacher Tina who's running short on school

03:16

supplies and gas Teacher Tina What's that Sixteen twenty into

03:20

her bank account And you can guess what teacher Tina's

03:23

bank account does Yep same is your bank and same

03:25

as Climber Chris's bank and teacher Tina's bank lends out

03:28

ninety percent of the money she deposit which is a

03:30

fourteen hundred forty eight dollars to Dan the Man and

03:33

so on Under this system and initial deposit actually grows

03:36

providing more value than the initial amount deposited Its multiplied

03:41

each time money is loaned out and then re deposited

03:43

only ninety percent That deposit gets turned into a new

03:45

loan Well we could keep taking ninety percent of the

03:48

deposits The maximum amount thanks can loan out from that

03:51

deposit until the amount loaned out deposited gets just any

03:55

words No more counting anymore So you still have that

03:58

two thousand dollars in your bank account that belongs to

04:00

you Meanwhile climate Chris has eighteen hundred and you can

04:03

spend a teacher Tina has sixteen twenty that she can

04:06

spend and it all came from your initial deposit Thank

04:09

you very much Well how Khun to Grand that was

04:11

in your bank account multiply into additional value that other

04:15

people can use in the economy But we told you

04:18

that multiple expansions of deposits was magic It literally expands

04:22

the money supply Will remember that deposit expansion multiplier we

04:25

mentioned earlier It's how the Fed can measure the maximum

04:28

amount of money and initial injection of a deposit like

04:31

your two grand can be expected to create Will the

04:34

deposit expansion multipliers just calculated as one divided by the

04:38

reserve requirements sonar case That's one By the by point

04:42

one or ten we can use the deposit expansion multiplier

04:45

to see how much money you're too grand Deposit expanded

04:47

the money supply under this setting to figure out how

04:49

much a deposit expanding the money supply We just multiply

04:52

the expansion multiplier by the initial excess reserves On our

04:55

scenario the reserve requirements ten percent which gives a deposit

04:58

expansion multiplier of ten Then we take that excess reserves

05:01

from the initial deposit You know that ninety percent chunk

05:03

of money that was created into the first loan for

05:06

climate Chris by your bank and I was eighteen hundred

05:08

bucks right So you're going to multiply that eighteen hundred

05:10

by ten So ninety percent ofyour deposit was loaned out

05:13

on deposit to Climate Chris and I sounded out blown

05:16

out positive Tina and I pretended I was loaned out

05:18

and positive Dan the Man and so on So if

05:20

we assume the bank's loaned out ninety percent of stage

05:22

while then it means the money supply was expanded by

05:25

eighteen thousand dollars That means assuming a reserve requirement of

05:29

ten percent for all commercial banks while your initial deposit

05:32

of two grand expanded the money supply nine times to

05:36

be eighteen thousand dollars in the economy Yes you Khun

05:39

tell everyone you're welcome Okay So besides feeling likea money

05:43

expansion superhero why do we care about multiple expansion of

05:47

deposits Well the Fed is in charge of keeping the

05:50

economy healthy One major way of doing that is by

05:52

maintaining the money supply you can think about That is

05:55

a doctor and the economy is a patient with the

05:58

money Supply is well the blood pressure A low blood

06:00

pressure like a low money supply means multiple expansion of

06:04

deposit is low which means there's less money flowing through

06:07

the economy which results in less spending and slower economic

06:10

growth Yeah no likey Blood pressure that's too high like

06:14

a high money supply isn't good either though we've seen

06:16

it before in history where a government just starts printing

06:19

more and more money without the corresponding economic growth and

06:22

what happens well hyperinflation prices of everything skyrocket and money

06:27

becomes almost useless People lose trust in the system And

06:30

oh that's so not good for the economy So that

06:33

two dollar milk and now it's one hundred dollars a

06:35

carton a month later Six thousand Some places have faced

06:39

hyperinflation of like three thousand percent a year or more

06:42

Well the feds jobs to keep the economy's money supply

06:44

like blood pressure stable which means it needs to be

06:47

not too high not too low Well when the Fed

06:50

raises interest rates it essentially lowers the demand for loans

06:54

It lowers the amount of access reserve loaned out and

06:56

that whole process slows the growth of the money supply

06:59

from slower expansions of deposits When the Fed lowers interest

07:03

rates it's trying to increase demand for loans encouraging the

07:06

multiple expansion of deposits to grow the money supply well

07:09

Besides interest rates the Fed can tinker with things like

07:12

stimulus packages and other strategies to expand or contract the

07:16

money supply They do all kinds of things They're sort

07:19

of crazy All right so now you know money does

07:21

not grow on trees but well it does grow out

07:23

of your bank account So let's go deposits him though

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