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Working Paper
A study of U.S. monetary policy implementation: demand for reserves on a period average basis
This paper provides new estimates of banks' demand for excess reserve balances on a period average basis. Consistent with theoretical work, we find that the demand for excess depends critically on uncertainty of flows in and out of reserve accounts. We also document the variability of demand for excess reserve balances by institution size, evaluate different models for forecasting demand for excess on a period average basis, and report the forecasting performance of each of these models. Finally, we present analysis of the period of financial turmoil seen over the year since August, 2007.
Working Paper
Un-Networking: The Evolution of Networks in the Federal Funds Market
Using a network approach to characterize the evolution of the federal funds market during the Great Recession and financial crisis of 2007-2008, we document that many small federal funds lenders began reducing their lending to larger institutions in the core of the network starting in mid-2007. But an abrupt change occurred in the fall of 2008, when small lenders left the federal funds market en masse and those that remained lent smaller amounts, less frequently. We then test whether changes in lending patterns within key components of the network were associated with increases in ...
Working Paper
Treasury Safety, Liquidity, and Money Premium Dynamics: Evidence from Recent Debt Limit Impasses
Treasury securities normally possess unparalleled safety and liquidity and, consequently, carry a money premium. We use recent debt limit impasses, which temporarily increased the riskiness of Treasuries, to investigate the relationship between the money premium, safety, and liquidity. Our results shed light on Treasury market dynamics specifically, and debt more generally. We first establish that a decline in the perceived safety of Treasuries erodes the money premium at all times. Meanwhile, changes in liquidity only affected the money premium during the impasses. Next, we show that ...
Working Paper
The first line of defense: the discount window during the early stages of the financial crisis
This paper develops a theoretical model of trading in the federal funds market that captures characteristics of discount window borrowing and the federal funds market during the first year of the financial crisis, including the narrowing of the spread between the discount rate and the target rate; the increased incidence of high-rate trading; and the decline in participation in the federal funds market. The model shows that differences in stigma of borrowing from the discount window across banks can cause the federal funds rate to rise, even when the spread between the discount rate and the ...
Working Paper
Technology adoption and consumer payments : evidence from survey data
Consumers pay for hundreds of goods and services each year, but across households and across goods, consumers do not choose to pay the same way. This paper posits that these differences depend in part on consumers' propensity to adopt new technologies, and depend in part on the nature of the transaction. In order to test these hypotheses, this paper offers comparisons of payment instrument use at the point of sale and for bill payment from a sample of consumers surveyed in 2001, drawn primarily from users of the Internet. The results indicate that consumers who use technology or computers are ...
Working Paper
The Fed's Discount Window in "Normal" Times
We study new transaction-level data of discount window borrowing in the U.S. between 2010 and 2017, merged with quarterly data on bank financial con- ditions (balance sheet and revenue). The objective is to improve our under- standing of the reasons for why banks use the discount window during periods outside financial crises. We also provide a model of the decision of banks to borrow at the window, which is helpful for interpreting the data. We find that decisions to gain access and to borrow at the discount window are meaning- fully correlated with some relevant banks' characteristics and ...
Working Paper
The Federal Reserve's Tools for Policy Normalization in a Preferred Habitat Model of Financial Markets
This paper develops a model of the financial system that provides a framework for analyzing monetary policy implementation in a world with multiple Federal Reserve liabilities and a superabundant supply of reserves. The analysis demonstrates that the Federal Reserve's suite of policy tools including interest on excess reserves (IOER), overnight and term reverse repurchase agreements, and term deposits should allow the Federal Reserve to raise the level of short-term interest rates at the appropriate time. The model also demonstrates that these tools could be used in different ways to achieve ...
Working Paper
The FOMC's Use of Operational Targets: 85 Years and Counting
This paper uses summaries of the Federal Open Market Committee’s (FOMC’s) meetings to identify its operational targets and map those to operating regimes. We find that operational targets were more often discussed in the earlier part of the FOMC’s 85-year history, but recent years have seen a resurgence in discussions. We identify distinct operating regimes and find that regimes with discussions of multiple targets, usually rate and quantity pairs, are more common than regimes dominated by discussions of single targets. We document that the current period (the 2007-2009 financial crisis ...