Search Results
Working Paper
Defining the monetary base in a deregulated financial system
An examination of how the diminishing role of reserve requirements has made the monetary base a less useful measure of monetary policy than in previous years.
Working Paper
Non-par banking: competition and monopoly in markets for payments services
Once the Federal Reserve Banks started providing par interbank funds transfers, their check collection service was unnecessary to bring nationwide par check collection in competitive banking markets. The survival of non-par banks probably reflected the absence of competition in the markets where they operated. The empirical evidence is consistent with this conclusion, since non-par banks typically were monopolists in isolated rural markets for banking services.
Working Paper
Pricing daylight overdrafts
An examination of three policy problems associated with daylight credit and an evaluation of three reform proposals to alleviate the payment system risk associated with Federal Reserve Banks' extension of daylight credit to financial institutions.
Journal Article
Evolution in banking supervision
Banking supervision must keep pace with technical innovations in the banking industry. The international Basel Committee on Banking Supervision currently is reviewing public comments on its proposed new method for judging whether a bank maintains enough capital to absorb unexpected losses. This Economic Commentary explains how existing standards became obsolete and describes the new plan.
Working Paper
The founders' intentions: sources of the payments services franchise of the Federal Reserve banks
The reserve banks check collection service was designed in 1913 to serve as "glue," attaching the new central bank to the commercial and financial markets through member banks. Successful creation and operation of the Federal Reserve System was thought to be more likely if the reserve banks could do more for member banks than lend occasionally and administer the reserve requirement tax. Initial drafts of the Federal Reserve Act would have allowed member banks to use required reserve deposits only for making interbank transfers. But correspondent banking relationships already provided ...
Journal Article
The new discount window
New regulations will change the way credit is rationed at the Federal Reserve's discount window. The Reserve Banks used to charge a below-market discount rate and rely on loan officers to restrict access to loans. Under the new system, the discount rate normally will be significantly higher than market rates, but loans will be available to any sound institution (which means most) at its discretion. This new arrangement eliminates any perception of a subsidy at the discount window. It also should prevent the actual fed funds rate from exceeding the discount rate so long as depository ...
Journal Article
Comparing Central Banks' Rulebooks
A central bank's daylight overdraft and reserve requirement rules
Journal Article
Comparing central banks' rulebooks
A comparison of Federal Reserve overdraft and reserve requirement rules with those of the Deutsche Bundesbank, the Bank of Japan, and the Bank of England, finding that no unique set of rules is necessary for effective performance of a central bank's monetary and payments system functions.
Journal Article
Electronic money and the future of central banks
Computers and telecommunications devices may replace paper currency and checks?some day. Indeed, electronic methods of transferring money have become widely used. Recently, however, discussion of ?electronic money? has taken a new turn, zeroing in on the extent to which holding new forms of electronic money eventually could make central banks obsolete, rendering them powerless to control inflation. This Commentary updates the old story of electronic funds transfers before introducing the new story of electronic money holdings, which may be a metaphor for a larger question about the future of ...