Congress has debated and changed the governance structure from time to time, including the 1927 decision to give the 12 Federal Reserve Banks permanent charters rather than 20-year charters. Following the Great Depression, the passage of the Banking Acts of 1933 and 1935 brought about the biggest changes in governance.
Economic theory points to a role for public policy to intervene to correct market failure in cases where the private sector does not fully take into account the social cost of its activities. A carbon tax incentivises the private sector to find efficient ways of reducing pollution.15 However, the issue of how to distribute the burden associated with this incentive is socially divisive.