Treasury Market Liquidity during the COVID‑19 Crisis
A key objective of recent Federal Reserve policy actions is to address the deterioration in financial market functioning. The U.S. Treasury securities market, in particular, has been the subject of Fed and market participants’ concerns, and the venue for some of the Fed’s initiatives. In this post, we evaluate a basic metric of market functioning for Treasury securities—market liquidity—through the first month of the Fed’s extraordinary actions. Our particular focus is on how liquidity in March 2020 compares to that observed over the past fifteen years, a period that includes the 2007-09 financial crisis.
Helping State and Local Governments Stay Liquid
On April 9, the Federal Reserve announced up to $2.3 trillion in new support for the economy in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Among the initiatives is the Municipal Liquidity Facility (MLF), intended to support state and local governments. The details of the facility are described in the term sheet. The state and local sector is a unique but very important part of the economy. This post lays out some of the economics of the sector and the needs that the facility intends to satisfy.
How Does Information Affect Liquidity in Over‑the‑Counter Markets?
A large volume of financial transactions occur in decentralized markets that commonly depend on a network of dealers. Dealers face two impediments to providing liquidity in these markets. First, dealers may face informed traders. Second, they may face costs associated with maintaining large balance sheets, either due to inventory or liquidity costs. In a recent paper, we study a model of over-the-counter (OTC) markets in which liquidity is endogenously determined by dealers who must contend with both asymmetric information and liquidity costs. This post provides an intuitive explanation of our model and the dynamics of interdealer liquidity.
The Side Effects of Shadow Banking on Liquidity Provision
Over the past two decades, the growth of shadow banking has transformed the way the U.S. banking system funds corporations. In this post, we describe how this growth has affected both the term loan and credit line businesses, and how the changes have resulted in a reduction in the liquidity insurance provided to firms.
Assessing the Price Impact of Treasury Market Workups
The price impact of a trade derives largely from its informational content. The “workup” mechanism, a trading protocol used in the U.S. Treasury securities market, is designed to mitigate the instantaneous price impact of a trade by allowing market participants to trade additional quantities of a security after a buyer and seller first agree on its price. Nevertheless, workup trades are not necessarily free of information. In this post, we assess the role of workups in price discovery, following our recent paper in the Review of Asset Pricing Studies (an earlier version of which was released as a New York Fed staff report).
Highlights from the Fourth Bi‑annual Global Research Forum on International Macroeconomics and Finance
Achieving and maintaining global financial stability has been at the forefront of policy discussions in the decade after the eruption of the global financial crisis. With the purpose of exploring key issues in international finance and macroeconomics from the perspective of what has changed ten years after the crisis, the fourth bi-annual Global Research Forum on International Macroeconomics and Finance, organized by the European Central Bank (ECB), the Federal Reserve Board, and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, was held at the ECB in Frankfurt am Main on November 29-30, 2018. Participants included a diverse group from academia, international policy institutions, national central banks, and financial markets. Among the topics of discussion: the international roles of the U.S. dollar, the evolution of global financial markets, and the safety of the global financial system.
A DSGE Perspective on Safety, Liquidity, and Low Interest Rates
Marco Del Negro, Domenico Giannone, Marc Giannoni, Abhi Gupta, Pearl Li, and Andrea Tambalotti Third of three posts The preceding two posts in this series documented that interest rates on safe and liquid assets, such as U.S. Treasury securities, have declined significantly in the past twenty years. Of course, short-term interest rates in the United […]
A Time‑Series Perspective on Safety, Liquidity, and Low Interest Rates
Brandyn Bok, Marco Del Negro, Domenico Giannone, Marc Giannoni, and Andrea Tambalotti Second of three posts The previous post in this series discussed several possible explanations for the trend decline in U.S. real interest rates since the late 1990s. We noted that while interest rates have generally come down over the past two decades, this […]
A New Perspective on Low Interest Rates
Marco Del Negro, Domenico Giannone, Marc Giannoni, and Andrea Tambalotti First of three posts Interest rates in the United States have remained at historically low levels for many years. This series of posts explores the forces behind the persistence of low rates. We briefly discuss some of the explanations advanced in the academic literature, and […]
U.S. Monetary Policy as a Changing Driver of Global Liquidity
International capital flows channel large volumes of funds across borders to both public and private sector borrowers. As they are critically important for economic growth and financial stability, understanding their main drivers is crucial for both policymakers and researchers. In this post, we explore the evolving impact of changes in U.S. monetary policy on global liquidity.
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