Central Banking After the Financial Crisis of 2008 - Actions of FED and ECB

The purpose of this thesis is to illuminate, compare and evaluate monetary policies of both central banks. The hypothesis is whether the Federal Reserve (Fed) and the European Central Bank (ECB) acted responsibly when using unconventional monetary instruments while dealing with consequences of the financial crisis, in order to prevent the emergences of new bubbles like the mortgage bubble in America, which preceded the worst crisis since the Great Depression. During the resolution of the 2008 financial crisis, central banks used unconventional monetary policy, quantitative easing. The main benefit of this thesis is the use of a critical view on the quantitative easing more than ten years after the beginning of the crisis. The thesis brings an evaluation of the effects of unconventional monetary policy not only in the short-term but also discusses the consequences of long-term. Not only measurable impacts on economic indicators but also a contextual analysis of the opinions of Czech and foreign economists are used for the evaluation. The thesis shows that the long-term effects of Fed and ECB behavior are rather negative, especially in the formation of distortions on financial and banking markets. The Fed managed to promote the growth of the US economy in the short term, however, at the cost of creating a space for a bubble in another market, such as the stock market. Even ten years after the crisis, the ECB has failed to cure the economies in the euro area. It has only delayed solving the pressing problem of euro area malfunction due to its heterogeneity.