Financial regulators conduct rulemaking and enforcement to implement law and supervise financial institutions. This book begins by discussing features that make federal financial regulators relatively independent from the President and Congress. It provides a history and overview of the rationale for making financial regulators independent, a discussion of what structural characteristics contribute toward independence and how those characteristics vary among regulators. It then continues to gives a brief description of the structure of the Federal Reserve System (Fed), and discusses the economics of how Fed independence affects monetary policy. The book concludes with an overview of the regulatory policies of the agencies that oversee banking and securities markets and explains which agencies are responsible for which institutions, activities, and markets.