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This paper goes into the analysis of Paul van Zeeland (1893-1973) of the first years of the Federal Reserve System. Paul van Zeeland was the first Head of Economics Service of the National Bank of Belgium, in 1921, after studies in Princeton with Edwin Walter Kemmerer. There are clear similarities in the analyses of both men, for instance in their adherence to the gold standard, quantity theory of money and real bills doctrine, as well as in their emphasis on the elasticity of the money supply and the availability of reserves to commercial banks. Moreover, they shared a view, with hindsight a rather naïve view, that with the Fed in place, financial crises would be a distant memory. However, there were also important differences. So accorded van Zeeland, like several other economists as Warburg, a greater significance to the discount market (a key factor for the international role of the dollar) and to a stronger centralization of the Fed (which would be taken up in the 1935 Banking Act). Moreover, very specific for van Zeeland, is the importance given to the Fed's independence from the State (an element related to van Zeeland’s continental European background and Belgium's experience of monetary financing during the war).

van Zeeland, Federal Reserve System, Banking Reform, Kemmerer