Bloomberg Releases Fed Emergency-Lending Data in Searchable Form

On Friday, Bloomberg News released spreadsheets which detail the daily borrowing totals for 407 banks and companies which tapped Federal Reserve emergency programs during the 2007 to 2009 financial crisis. This is the first time that this data has been made available in this form. The spreadsheets were created by culling through around 50,000 Fed transactions made through seven facilities. Bloomberg used the data as the basis of a series of articles earlier in the year about the largest financial bailout in history. “Scholars can now examine the data and continue the analysis of the Fed's crisis management,” said Allan H. Meltzer, a professor of political economy at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and the author of three books on the history of the U.S. central bank. The entire story, along with a by-the numbers explanation can be viewed at Bloomberg.com.