The interest rate set by the Federal Reserve is a crucial tool for promoting economic conditions that meet the mandate established by the United States Congress, which includes high employment, low and stable inflation, sustainable economic growth, and the moderation of long-term interest rates. The interest rates determined by the Fed directly influence the cost of credit, making financing either more accessible or more restrictive. When interest rates are low, there is a greater incentive for consumers to purchase homes through mortgages, finance automobiles, or undertake home renovations. Additionally, businesses are encouraged to invest in expanding their operations, whether by purchasing new equipment, modernizing facilities, or hiring more workers. Conversely, higher interest rates tend to curb such activity, discouraging borrowing and slowing economic expansion.

The dataset analyzed contains information on the economic conditions in the United States on a monthly basis since 1954, including the federal funds rate, which represents the percentage at which financial institutions trade reserves held at the Federal Reserve with each other in the interbank market overnight. This rate is determined by the market but is directly influenced by the Federal Reserve through open market operations to reach the established target. The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meets eight times a year to determine the federal funds rate target, which has been defined within a range with upper and lower limits since December 2008.

Furthermore, real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is calculated based on the seasonally adjusted quarterly rate of change in the economy, using chained 2009 dollars as a reference. The unemployment rate represents the seasonally adjusted percentage of the labor force that is unemployed. Meanwhile, the inflation rate is determined by the monthly change in the Consumer Price Index, excluding food and energy prices for a more stable analysis of core inflation.

The interest rate data was sourced from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis' economic data portal, while GDP information was provided by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, and unemployment and inflation data were made available by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The analysis of this data helps to understand how economic growth, the unemployment rate, and inflation influence the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy decisions. Additionally, it allows for a study of the evolution of interest rate policies over time and raises the question of how predictable the Fed’s future decisions may be. Based on observed trends, it is possible to speculate whether the target range set in March 2017 will be maintained, lowered, or increased, considering the prevailing economic context and the challenges faced in conducting U.S. monetary policy.

Context

The Federal Reserve sets interest rates to promote conditions that achieve the mandate set by the Congress — high employment, low and stable inflation, sustainable economic growth, and moderate long-term interest rates. Interest rates set by the Fed directly influence the cost of borrowing money. Lower interest rates encourage more people to obtain a mortgage for a new home or to borrow money for an automobile or for home improvement. Lower rates encourage businesses to borrow funds to invest in expansion such as purchasing new equipment, updating plants, or hiring more workers. Higher interest rates restrain such borrowing by consumers and businesses.

Content

This dataset includes data on the economic conditions in the United States on a monthly basis since 1954. The federal funds rate is the interest rate at which depository institutions trade federal funds (balances held at Federal Reserve Banks) with each other overnight. The rate that the borrowing institution pays to the lending institution is determined between the two banks; the weighted average rate for all of these types of negotiations is called the effective federal funds rate. The effective federal funds rate is determined by the market but is influenced by the Federal Reserve through open market operations to reach the federal funds rate target. The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meets eight times a year to determine the federal funds target rate; the target rate transitioned to a target range with an upper and lower limit in December 2008. The real gross domestic product is calculated as the seasonally adjusted quarterly rate of change in the gross domestic product based on chained 2009 dollars. The unemployment rate represents the number of unemployed as a seasonally adjusted percentage of the labor force. The inflation rate reflects the monthly change in the Consumer Price Index of products excluding food and energy.

Acknowledgements

The interest rate data was published by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis' economic data portal. The gross domestic product data was provided by the US Bureau of Economic Analysis; the unemployment and consumer price index data was provided by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Inspiration

How does economic growth, unemployment, and inflation impact the Federal Reserve's interest rates decisions? How has the interest rate policy changed over time? Can you predict the Federal Reserve's next decision? Will the target range set in March 2017 be increased, decreased, or remain the same?

The Federal Reserve Banks provide the Fedwire Funds Service, a real-time gross settlement system that enables participants to initiate funds transfer that are immediate, final, and irrevocable once processed. Depository institutions and certain other financial institutions that hold an account with a Federal Reserve Bank are eligible to participate in the Fedwire Funds Services. In 2008, approximately 7,300 participants made Fedwire funds transfers. The Fedwire Funds Service is generally used to make large-value, time-critical payments.The Fedwire Funds Service is a credit transfer service. Participants originate funds transfers by instructing a Federal Reserve Bank to debit funds from its own account and credit funds to the account of another participant. Participants may originate funds transfers online, by initiating a secure electronic message, or off line, via telephone procedures.

The Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) is normally a triennial cross-sectional survey of U.S. families. The survey data include information on families' balance sheets, pensions, income, and demographic characteristics.

The benchmark interest rate in the United States was last recorded at 4 percent. This dataset provides the latest reported value for - United States Fed Funds Rate - plus previous releases, historical high and low, short-term forecast and long-term prediction, economic calendar, survey consensus and news.

The Agricultural Finance Databook is a compilation of various data on current developments in agricultural finance. Large portions of the data come from regular surveys conducted by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System or by Federal Reserve Banks. Other portions come from the quarterly Call Report data of commercial banks or from the reports of other financial institutions involved in agricultural lending. This data is no longer published by the Federal Reserve Board. On October 1, 2010, the E.15 statistical release transitioned from the Board of Governors to the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. You can now find the most current Agricultural Finance Databook at https://www.kansascityfed.org/research/indicatorsdata/agfinancedatabook.

Content

More details about each file are in the individual file descriptions.

Context

This is a dataset hosted by the Federal Reserve Economic Database (FRED). The organization has a data platform found here and they update their information according the amount of data that is brought in. Explore FRED using Kaggle and all of the data sources available through the FRED organization page!

• Update Frequency: This dataset is updated daily.

Acknowledgements

This dataset is maintained using FRED's APIs and Kaggle's API.

Cover photo by Abraham Osorio on Unsplash
Unsplash Images are distributed under a unique Unsplash License.

The H.10 weekly release contains daily rates of exchange of major currencies against the U.S. dollar. The data are noon buying rates in New York for cable transfers payable in the listed currencies. The rates have been certified by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York for customs purposes as required by section 522 of the amended Tariff Act of 1930.

The Federal Reserve Banks provide the Fedwire Securities Service, a securities settlement system that enables participants to hold, maintain, and transfer Fedwire-eligible securities. Depository institutions and certain other governmental or financial institutions that hold a funds account and a securities account with a Federal Reserve Bank are eligible to participate in the Fedwire Securities Service. In 2008, approximately 2,300 participants made Fedwire securities transfers. Fedwire-eligible securities include securities issued by the U.S. Treasury, other federal agencies, government-sponsored enterprises, and certain international organizations, such as the World Bank. Securities are held and transferred in book-entry form. Securities transfers can be made free of payment or against a designated payment. Most securities transfers are, however, made against a designated payment. Transfers against payment involve the simultaneous exchange of payment for the security. All securities transfers are final at the time of transfer. Participants may originate securities transfers online, by initiating a secure electronic message, or off line, via telephone procedures.

Note: The Board of Governors has discontinued the Survey of Terms of Business Lending (STBL) and the associated E.2 release. The final STBL was conducted in May 2017, and the final E.2 was released on August 2, 2017. The STBL has been replaced by a new Small Business Lending Survey that commenced in February 2018. The new survey is being managed and administered by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. Results from this new survey can be found here.

This dataset represents a snapshot of the FRED catalog, captured on 2025-03-24.

What is FRED? As per the FRED website,

Short for Federal Reserve Economic Data, FRED is an online database consisting of hundreds of thousands of economic data time series from scores of national, international, public, and private sources. FRED, created and maintained by the Research Department at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, goes far beyond simply providing data: It combines data with a powerful mix of tools that help the user understand, interact with, display, and disseminate the data. In essence, FRED helps users tell their data stories. The purpose of this article is to guide the potential (or current) FRED user through the various aspects and tools of the database.

The FRED database is an abolute gold mine of economic data time series. Thousands of such series are published on the FRED website, organized by category and avialable for viewing and downloading. In fact, a number of these economic datasets have been uploaded to kaggle. With in the current notebook, however, we are not interested in the individual time series; rather, we are focused on catalog itself.

The FRED API has been used for gaining access to the catalog. The catalog consists of two files

• categories.csv - the heirarchy of categories used for organizing the time series
• series.csv - the list of avialable time series themselves

A given category is identified by a category_id. And, in a similar fashion, a given series is identified by a series_id. In a given category, one may find both a group of series and a set of sub-categories. As such every series record contains a category_id to identify the immediate category under which it is found category record contains a parent_id to indicate where in the category heirarchy it resides

The H.6 release, published weekly, provides measures of the monetary aggregates (M1 and M2) and their components.M1 and M2 are progressively more inclusive measures of money: M1 is included in M2.M1, the more narrowly defined measure, consists of the most liquid forms of money, namely currency and checkable deposits.The non-M1 components of M2 are primarily household holdings of savings deposits, small time deposits, and retail money market mutual funds.Monthly data are available back to January 1959; for most series, weekly data are available back to January 1975.

Data were previously published in the Supplement to the Federal Reserve Bulletin, which ceased publication in December 2008. These tables will be discontinued with the final table released in April 2022. The source for these data is the Treasury International Capital System and future data publications can be found on Treasury’s website.

Dataset Description

This dataset contains the actual and predicted federal funds target rate for the United States from 1990 to 2023. The federal funds target rate is the interest rate at which depository institutions lend their excess reserves to each other overnight. It is set by the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) and is a key tool used by the Federal Reserve to influence the economy.

The dataset includes the following five columns:

Release Date: The date on which the data was released by the Federal Reserve. Time: The time of day at which the data was released. Actual: The actual federal funds target rate. Predicted: The predicted federal funds target rate. Forecast: The forecast federal funds target rate.

Data Usage

This dataset can be used for a variety of purposes, including: - Analyzing trends in the federal funds target rate over time. - Forecasting the future path of the federal funds target rate. - Assessing the effectiveness of monetary policy. - Data Quality

The data for this dataset is of high quality. The Federal Reserve is a reputable source of data and the data is updated regularly.

Data Limitations

The data for this dataset is limited to the United States. Additionally, the data does not include information on the factors that influenced the Federal Open Market Committee's decision to set the federal funds target rate.

This spreadsheet contains the disaggregated national bank call reports by state and reserve city for each call report date. These data appear as compiled by the Comptroller of the Currency. These data are a “cleaned” version of the data published in the Annual Reports of the Comptroller of the Currency. Where assets and liabilities were not equal for a state or reserve city in the original, they have been corrected to be equal in this data set. This was done by comparing for each asset and liability category differences between totals as reported by the Comptroller and totals category obtained by aggregating the individual state and reserve city data. It should also be noted that aggregates for the entire National Banking System should be based on the individual data in this dataset and not those reported by the Comptroller. After 1900 the dates for the data for Alaska and Hawaii that the Comptroller used in his totals do not match the dates given in the individual state reports.

The Payments Systems Surveys are used to obtain information specifically tailored to the Federal Reserve’s operational and fiscal agency responsibilities. The Payments Systems Surveys family of surveys is currently comprised of the following: Ad Hoc Payments Systems Survey (FR 3054a), Currency Quality Sampling Survey (FR 3054b), Currency Quality Survey (FR 3054c), Currency Functionality and Perception Survey (FR 3054d), and Currency Education Usability Survey (FR 3054e).

Graph and download economic data for Monetary Base: Total (BOGMBASE) from Jan 1959 to Oct 2025 about monetary base and USA.

This dataset contains the predicted prices of the asset End Federal Reserve over the next 16 years. This data is calculated initially using a default 5 percent annual growth rate, and after page load, it features a sliding scale component where the user can then further adjust the growth rate to their own positive or negative projections. The maximum positive adjustable growth rate is 100 percent, and the minimum adjustable growth rate is -100 percent.

This page will be updated weekly from October through December. The weekly pattern of commercial paper maturing after December 31 chart and table will be replaced each week. A new row will be added to the commercial paper maturing after December 31 table each week.

The G.13 statistical release discontinued as of January 8, 2002. The data reported on the G.13 are available elsewhere: In a daily release, the H.15, which is available in print and on the Board's web site (www.federalreserve.gov/releases/H15)