74 posts on "Fed Funds"
May 23, 2012
What’s Driving Up Money Growth?
Two key monetary aggregates, M1 and M2, have grown quickly recently—especially M1, the narrow aggregate.
May 9, 2012
A Boost in Your Paycheck: How Are U.S. Workers Using the Payroll Tax Cut?
Over the past several months, there was a flurry of debate in Washington over the extension of the payroll tax cut.
April 4, 2012
Corridors and Floors in Monetary Policy
As part of its prudent planning for future developments, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) has discussed strategies for normalizing the conduct of monetary policy, when appropriate, as the economy strengthens.
February 29, 2012
Is Risk Rising in the Tri‑Party Repo Market?
At the New York Fed, we follow the repo market closely and, with some of my colleagues, I’ve tried to keep readers of this blog informed about how the market works, how it’s being reformed, and what risks remain.
February 27, 2012
How the High Level of Reserves Benefits the Payment System
Since October 2008, the Federal Reserve has increased the size of its balance sheet by lending to financial intermediaries and purchasing assets on a large scale.
October 20, 2011
Just Released: Fed Proposes Simpler Rules for Banks’ Reserve Requirements
Reserve requirements—a critical tool available to Federal Reserve policymakers for the implementation of monetary policy—stipulate the amount of funds that banks and other depository institutions must hold in reserve against specified deposits, essentially checking accounts.
October 11, 2011
Did the Fed’s Term Auction Facility Work?
We argue that the Fed’s Term Auction Facility (TAF), introduced in December 2007, lowered the cost of borrowing of banks in the market during the recent financial crisis.
August 31, 2011
Is There Stigma to Discount Window Borrowing?
The Federal Reserve employs the discount window (DW) to provide funding to fundamentally solvent but illiquid banks (see the March 30 post “Why Do Central Banks Have Discount Windows?”). Historically, however, there has been a low level of DW use by banks, even when they are faced with severe liquidity shortages, raising the possibility of a stigma attached to DW borrowing. If DW stigma exists, it is likely to inhibit the Fed’s ability to act as lender of last resort and prod banks to turn to more expensive sources of financing when they can least afford it. In this post, we provide evidence that during the recent financial crisis banks were willing to pay higher interest rates in order to avoid going to the DW, a pattern of behavior consistent with stigma.
July 20, 2011
Stabilizing the Tri‑Party Repo Market by Eliminating the “Unwind”
On July 6, 2011, the Task Force on Tri-Party Repo Infrastructure—an industry group sponsored by the New York Fed—released a Progress Report in which it reaffirmed the goal of eliminating the wholesale “unwind” of repos (and the requisite extension of more than a trillion dollars of intraday credit by repo clearing banks), but acknowledged unspecified delays in achieving that goal. The “unwind” is the settlement of repos that currently takes place each morning and replaces credit from investors with credit from the clearing banks. As I explain in this post, by postponing settlement until the afternoon and thereby linking the settlement of new and maturing repos, the proposed new settlement approach could help stabilize the tri-party repo market by eliminating the incentive for investors to withdraw funds from a dealer simply because they believe other investors will do the same. In effect, eliminating the unwind can reduce the risk of the equivalent of bank runs in the repo market, or “repo runs.”
May 18, 2011
Will the Federal Reserve’s Asset Purchases Lead to Higher Inflation?
A common refrain among critics of the Federal Reserve’s large-scale asset purchases (“LSAPs”) of Treasury securities is that the Fed is simply printing money to purchase the assets, and that this money growth will lead to much higher inflation. Are those charges accurate? In this post, I explain that the Fed’s asset purchases do not necessarily lead to higher money growth, and that the Fed’s ability (since 2008) to pay interest on banks’ reserves provides a critical new tool to constrain future money growth. With this innovation, an increase in bank reserves no longer mechanically triggers a series of responses that could lead to excessive money growth and higher inflation.
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