Executive MBA students at the San Francisco campus of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School had the opportunity to visit the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. The visit was arranged by Karen Chan, a first-year executive MBA student at Wharton, San Francisco and a supervisory analyst at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
“In Macroeconomics, we talked a lot about concepts such as money supply, pricing, interest rates, and inflation. We looked at how Fed policy affects all aspects of the economy and financial markets,” said Chan. “I thought it would be interesting to offer my classmates a tour of our local Federal Reserve Bank as an accompaniment to that course.”
During the tour, the EMBA students got to see a portion of the Fed that visitors can only see with an employee escort: the cash vault in the basement. The vault contains pallets of money. Each pallet measures 4 x 4 x 4 feet and contains $46 million in $100 bills. Chan estimated that there were billions of dollars in the vault when the EMBAs visited.
In addition to the cash vault, the students visited the cash counting area where Fed employees inspect currency for authenticity and bundle particular denominations of bills. The students also visited the Currency Exhibit, where they viewed the Fed’s collection of currency from every decade in American history, including the American Revolution and the Civil War. Finally, the students had the opportunity to visit the Fed Center, an exhibit at the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank that teaches the public about the central bank’s functions using interactive displays.
The Executive MBA students who visited the Federal Reserve Bank were taking the class Macroeconomics and the Global Economic Environment, taught by Professor Andrew Abel. In the Macroeconomics class, Abel gave a lecture about the structure, functions, and operations of the Federal Reserve System. The lecture took place on the day after the EMBA tour of the Fed.