Global Trends in Interest Rates

Marco Del Negro, Domenico Giannone, Marc P. Giannoni, Andrea Tambalotti, Brandyn Bok, and Eric Qian



Long-term government bond yields are at their lowest levels of the past 150 years in advanced economies. In this blog post, we argue that this low-interest-rate environment reflects secular global forces that have lowered real interest rates by about two percentage points over the past forty years. The magnitude of this decline has been nearly the same in all advanced economies, since their real interest rates have converged over this period. The key factors behind this development are an increase in demand for safety and liquidity among investors and a slowdown in global economic growth.

Stressed Outflows and the Supply of Central Bank Reserves

Ryan Bush, Adam Kirk, Antoine Martin, Phil Weed, and Patricia Zobel



Since the financial crisis, banking regulators around the world have been intensely aware of liquidity risk and, in part as a response, have introduced the Basel III liquidity regulation. Today, the world’s largest banks hold substantial liquidity buffers comprising both securities and central bank reserves, to satisfy internal liquidity stress tests and minimum quantitative regulatory requirements. The appropriate level of liquidity buffers depends on the likely outflows in a market stress situation. In this post, we use public data to provide a rough estimate of stressed outflows that the largest banks would face and consider how they could meet these outflows.

Did Banks Subject to LCR Reduce Liquidity Creation?

Daniel Roberts, Asani Sarkar, and Or Shachar



Banks traditionally provide loans that are funded mostly by deposits and thereby create liquidity, which benefits the economy. However, since the loans are typically long-term and illiquid, whereas the deposits are short-term and liquid, this creation of liquidity entails risk for the bank because of the possibility that depositors may “run” (that is, withdraw their deposits on short notice). To mitigate this risk, regulators implemented the liquidity coverage ratio (LCR) following the financial crisis of 2007-08, mandating banks to hold a buffer of liquid assets. A side effect of the regulation, however, is a reduction in liquidity creation by banks subject to LCR, as we find in our recent paper.

How Do the Fed’s MBS Holdings Affect the Economy?

Antoine Martin and Sam Schulhofer-Wohl



In our previous post, we discussed the meaning of the term “credit allocation” and how it relates to the Federal Reserve’s holdings of agency mortgage-backed securities (MBS). We concluded that the Fed’s MBS holdings do not pose significant credit risk but that the Fed does influence the relative market price of credit when it purchases agency MBS, and this indirectly influences decisions by investors. Today, we take the next step and discuss how the Fed’s MBS purchases affect the U.S. economy and, in particular, how the effect of MBS purchases can differ from the effect of purchases of Treasury securities.

How Do the Fed's MBS Purchases Affect Credit Allocation?

Antoine Martin and Sam Schulhofer-Wohl



It is sometimes said that the Federal Reserve should not engage in “credit allocation.” But what does credit allocation actually mean? And how do current Fed policies affect the allocation of credit? In this post, we describe two separate ideas often associated with credit allocation. The first idea is that the Fed should not take credit risk, which taxpayers would ultimately have to bear. The second idea is that the Fed’s actions should not influence the flow of credit to particular sectors. We consider whether the Fed’s holdings of agency mortgage-backed securities (MBS) could affect the allocation of credit. In a companion post, we discuss how the economic effects of the Fed’s MBS holdings compare with the economic effects of more traditional holdings.

Hey, Economist! Outgoing New York Fed President Bill Dudley on FOMC Preparation and Thinking Like an Economist

Bill Dudley will soon turn over the keys to the vault—so to speak. But before his tenure ends after nine years as president of the New York Fed, Liberty Street Economics sought to capture his parting reflections on economic research, FOMC preparation, and leadership. Publications editor Trevor Delaney recently caught up with Dudley. This transcript has been lightly edited.

The ‘Banking Desert’ Mirage

Donald P. Morgan, Maxim Pinkovskiy, and Davy Perlman

Editor's note: The original version of this post misstated the share of the population that is unbanked for several states. The table, interactive chart, and related text have been corrected. These changes did not alter our conclusion that across states, the share of the population that is unbanked is not positively correlated with the share living in banking deserts.



Unbanked households are often imagined to live in urban neighborhoods devoid of banks, but is that really the case? Our map of U.S. banking deserts reveals that most are not in urban areas, where financial exclusion may be endemic, but in actual deserts—largely in the sparsely populated, rural West. Across states, we find that the share of the population in a banking desert is unrelated to the share that is unbanked. If distance from a bank is not what causes financial exclusion, then motivating banks to locate closer to the unbanked may not promote financial inclusion.

Fiscal Implications of the Federal Reserve’s Balance Sheet Normalization

Michele Cavallo, Marco Del Negro, W. Scott Frame, Jamie Grasing, Benjamin A. Malin, and Carlo Rosa



In the wake of the global financial crisis, the Federal Reserve dramatically increased the size of its balance sheet—from about $900 billion at the end of 2007 to about $4.5 trillion today. At its September 2017 meeting, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) announced that—effective October 2017—it would initiate the balance sheet normalization program described in the June 2017 addendum to the FOMC’s Policy Normalization Principles and Plans.

The Fed’s Balance Sheet, Night Lights, and the Other Top LSE Posts of 2017

Trevor Delaney



In the spirit of this season of year-end lists of accomplishments, Liberty Street Economics offers a roundup of our most viewed posts. Our readers continued to gravitate toward timely, topical posts; our most popular explained how the Fed manages its enlarged balance sheet—a major focus of the FOMC, Congress, markets, and economists. Prompted by reader questions in response to their first post, the authors also penned a follow-up post. Another hit this year described an innovative indicator of economic growth—night light intensity measured via satellite—and used it to fact-check official Chinese growth estimates.

Just Released: New York Fed Markets Data Dashboard

Antoine Martin, Susan McLaughlin, and Jordan Pollinger



The Federal Reserve Bank of New York releases data on a number of market operations, reference rates, monetary policy expectations, and Federal Reserve securities portfolio holdings. These data are released at different times, for different types of securities or rates, and for different audiences. In an effort to bring this information together in a single, convenient location, the New York Fed developed the Markets Data Dashboard, which was launched today.