Economic Policy (Monetary/Fiscal) 

Interstate Commerce Commission (1887): required that railroad rates be just and reasonable. Also prohibited pooling, rate discrimination, and charging more for longer hauls. 

Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890): Section 1 prohibits all restraints of trade, including price-fixing, bid-rigging, and market allocation agreements. Section 2 prohibits monopolization. 

Pure Food and Drug Act (1906): prohibited the mislabeling of foods and drugs. 

Clayton Anti-Trust Act (1914): prohibited unfair business practices such as price discrimination, exclusive dealing contracts, and corporate mergers that lessened competition. Sought to prevent monopolies and trusts. 

16th Amendment (1913): authorized the national government to “lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived” without being apportioned among the states. 

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (1933): insures bank deposits, originally for $5,000 per account. 

Securities and Exchange Commission (1934): independent regulatory commission. It’s authorized to regulate the stock exchanges, to enforce the Securities Act (investors be given full info on stocks or securities being offered to them), and reduce the numb#r of stocks bought on margin (with borrowed money). 

National Labor Relations Act (1935): guaranteed workers’ rights to organize and bargain collectively through unions of their choosing. 

Fair Labor Standards Act (1938): set 25 cents an hour and 44 hours a week as initial minimum standards. Also banned child labor. Didn’t protect farmers, domestic workers, fishermen, etc. 

Federal Communications Commission (1935): Was given extensive jurisdiction over the radio, telephone, and telegraph industries. 

Occupational Safety and Health Act (1966): Guarantees workers a safe and healthy workplace, but contains no health and safety standards with which workplaces must comply. 

Deregulation: reduction in market controls. 

Airline Deregulation Act (1978): Completely eliminated economic regulation of commercial airlines over several years. 

Monetary Policy: A form of government regulation in which the nation’s money supply and interest rates are controlled. 

Federal Reserve Board: A seven-member board that sets member banks’ reserve requirements, controls the discount rate, and makes other economic decisions. 

Reserve requirements: Governmental requirements that a portion of member banks’ deposits must be retained to back loans made. 

Discount rate: The rate of interest at which member banks can borrow money from their regional Federal Reserve Board. 

Open market operations: The buying and selling of government securities by the Federal Reserve Bank in the securities market. 

Fiscal policy: Federal gov. policies on taxes, spending, and dept management, intended to promote the nation’s macroeconomic goals, particularly with respect to employment, price stability, and growth. 

Clean Air Act (1970): Directs the EPA to set standards for motor vehicle emissions, air quality, hazardous air pollutants, and new sources of pollution; to prevent significant deterioration of air quality in clean air areas; to reduce stratospheric ozone depletion; and to control acid rain through emissions trading system. 

Clean Water Act (1972): Creates a federal grant program to finance sewage treatment plant construction, authorizes technological standards to reduce water pollution, and establishes programs to control non-point-source pollution, such as runoff from parking lots and livestock feedlots. 

National Environmental Policy Act (1969): Requires agencies taking actions that will have a major impact on the environment to prepare environmental impact statements (EISs), which are subject to review by the EPA. 

Superfund: The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act: provides for the cleanup of abandoned hazardous waste sights  

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