Search Results
Working Paper
The liquidity effect in the federal funds market: evidence from daily open market operations
We use forecast errors made by the Federal Reserve while preparing open market operations to identify a liquidity effect at a daily frequency in the federal funds market. Unlike Hamilton (1997), we find a liquidity effect on many days of the reserve maintenance period besides settlement day. The effect is non-linear; large changes in supply have a measurable effect, but small changes do not. In addition, a higher aggregate level of reserve balances in the banking system is associated with a smaller liquidity effect during the maintenance period but a larger liquidity effect on the last days ...
Working Paper
Volatility, money market rates, and the transmission of monetary policy
Central banks typically control an overnight interest rate as their policy tool, and the transmission of monetary policy happens through the relationship of this overnight rate to the rest of the yield curve. The expectations hypothesis, that longer-term rates should equal expected future short-term rates plus a term premium, provides the typical framework for understanding this relationship. We explore the effect of volatility in the federal funds market on the expectations hypothesis in money markets. We present two major results. First, the expectations hypothesis is likely to be rejected ...
Working Paper
Overnight interbank loan markets
This paper investigates transactions and interest rates on brokered and direct trades in federal funds, Eurodollar transactions, and repurchase agreements, all of which are used by banks in overnight funding. We expand on earlier work on calendar-day effects in these markets, investigating also volumes of funding in recent years. Our data include daily trades in federal funds reported by major brokers and also records of uncollateralized transactions over the wire transfer system operated by the Federal Reserve. We find that the share of the overnight interbank loan market represented by ...
Working Paper
Money, reserves, and the transmission of monetary policy: does the money multiplier exist?
With the use of nontraditional policy tools, the level of reserve balances has risen significantly in the United States since 2007. Before the financial crisis, reserve balances were roughly $20 billion whereas the level has risen well past $1 trillion. The effect of reserve balances in simple macroeconomic models often comes through the money multiplier, affecting the money supply and the amount of bank lending in the economy. Most models currently used for macroeconomic policy analysis, however, either exclude money or model money demand as entirely endogenous, thus precluding any causal ...
Working Paper
Monetary policy in a changing world: rising role of expectations and the anticipation effect
The Federal Reserve (Fed) has maintained a general trend toward increased transparency and gradualism. This paper investigates the implications of these historical developments for the anticipation of monetary policy actions and adjustment of interest rates. In a theoretical framework, we establish the Fed's ability to manipulate overnight rates via an "anticipation" effect. The anticipation effect is defined as interest rate adjustments that take place prior to a policy announcement (or prior to when the complementary open market operations associated with that policy action take place) ...
Working Paper
Analyzing Federal Reserve asset purchases: from whom does the Fed buy?
Asset purchases have become an important monetary policy tool of the Federal Reserve in recent years. To date, most studies of the Federal Reserve's asset purchases have tried to measure the interest rate effects of the policies. Several papers provide evidence that these programs do have important effects on longer-term market interest rates. The theory of how asset purchases work, however, is less well developed. Some of the empirical studies point to "preferred habitat" models in which investors do not have the same objectives, and therefore prefer to hold different types and maturities ...
Working Paper
Declining required reserves, funds rate volatility, and open market operations
The standard view of the monetary transmission mechanism rests on the central bank's ability to manipulate the overnight interest rate by controlling the reserve supply. In the 1990s, there was a significant decline in the level of reserve balances in the U.S. accompanied at first by an increase in the funds rate volatility. However, following this initial rise, volatility declined. In this paper, we find evidence of a structural break in volatility. We then estimate a tobit model of the major types of temporary open market operations and conclude that there have been changes in the Desk's ...
Working Paper
The effectiveness of the non-standard policy measures during the financial crises: the experiences of the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank
A growing number of studies have sought to measure the effects of non-standard policy on bank funding markets. The purpose of this paper is to carry those estimates a step further by looking at the effects of bank funding market stress on the volume of bank lending, using a simultaneous equation approach. By separately modeling loan supply and demand, we determine how non-standard central bank measures affected bank lending by reducing stress in bank funding markets. We focus on the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank. Our results suggest that non-standard policy measures lowered ...
Journal Article
The announcement effect: evidence from open market desk data
Paper for a conference sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York entitled Financial Innovation and Monetary Transmission
Working Paper
The Pavlovian response of term rates to Fed announcements
The traditional view of the monetary transmission mechanism rests on the premise that the Federal Reserve (Fed) controls the level of the federal funds rate via open market operations and the liquidity effect. By contrast, this paper argues that the Fed also manipulates the federal funds rate via public disclosures of the new level of the federal funds rate target and the "announcement effect." We define the announcement effect as the portion of interest rate movements associated with public statements on interest rate targets that do not require conventional open market operations for ...