interest rates or fees. The interest rate will face economic pressures to creep up toward the equilibrium level.

The FRED database publishes some two dozen measures of interest rates, including interest rates on credit

cards, automobile loans, personal loans, mortgage loans, and more. You can find these at the FRED website

(https://openstax.org/l/FRED_stlouis).

Shifts in Demand and Supply in Financial Markets

Those who supply financial capital face two broad decisions: how much to save, and how to divide up their

savings among different forms of financial investments. We will discuss each of these in turn.

Participants in financial markets must decide when they prefer to consume goods: now or in the future.

Access for free at openstax.org
4.2 • Demand and Supply in Financial Markets 99

Economists call this intertemporal decision making because it involves decisions across time. Unlike a
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