Chair the Fed: the Monetary Policy Game From the San Francisco Fed

The purpose of the game is to build an understanding of the role of monetary policy in growing a healthy economy. Chair the Fed is a monetary policy game that puts the player in charge of the U.S. economy with two goals: stable prices and high employment. The player sets the Federal Reserve's key policy interest rate over 16 quarters of play and watches how rate changes move prices and jobs. The immediate goal is to be reappointed as Chair.

Each game ends with feedback that encourages another try. Players learn whether they met both goals and earned reappointment, which shock they faced and where their key variables ended. Because each game draws one of nine shocks at random, the design aims to bring players back for several games to sharpen their skill in steering the economy.

One shock hits the economy during each game, drawn at random from nine possibilities, so repeat plays differ. Along the way players meet policy time lags, the real rate of interest, supply and demand shocks and the natural rate of unemployment. At the end the game reports whether the goals were met, names the shock the player faced and shows the final level of the key variables.

The fast pace and the several pieces of information that update on screen are meant to keep play interesting while giving enough hints for players to build skill. Instruction is built into the play: players pick up the basics of macroeconomics, including how unemployment and inflation relate to the key interest rate, while they set rates.

The official page for the game, filed under teacher resources on frbsf.org, had been removed on purpose by November 2026. The address gives no text explaining the removal or naming a replacement, so no reason is stated here.

Because no page opened for this article says the game was retired, its status in the directory is unconfirmed.