Search Results
Report
Fiscal implications of the Federal Reserve's balance sheet normalization
The paper surveys the recent literature on the fiscal implications of central bank balance sheets, with a special focus on political economy issues. It then presents the results of simulations that describe the effects of different scenarios for the Federal Reserve's longer-run balance sheet on its earnings remittances to the U.S. Treasury and, more broadly, on the government's overall fiscal position. We find that reducing longer-run reserve balances from $2.3 trillion (roughly the current amount) to $1 trillion reduces the likelihood of posting a quarterly net loss in the future from 30 ...
Working Paper
Recreating Banking Networks under Decreasing Fixed Costs
Theory emphasizes the central role of the structure of networks in the behavior of financial systems and their response to policy. Real-world networks, however, are rarely directly observable: Banks? assets and liabilities are typically known, but not who is lending how much and to whom. We first show how to simulate realistic networks that are based on balance-sheet information by minimizing costs where there is a fixed cost to forming a link. Second, we also show how to do this for a model with fixed costs that are decreasing in the number of links. To approach the optimization problem, we ...
Journal Article
Blockchain: What It Is, What It Does, and Why You Probably Don’t Need One
All record-keeping systems (which include monetary systems) must contend with trust issues and methods of organizing historical information.
Journal Article
Decentralized Finance: On Blockchain- and Smart Contract-Based Financial Markets
The term decentralized finance (DeFi) refers to an alternative financial infrastructure built on top of the Ethereum blockchain. DeFi uses smart contracts to create protocols that replicate existing financial services in a more open, interoperable, and transparent way. This article highlights opportunities and potential risks of the DeFi ecosystem. I propose a multi-layered framework to analyze the implicit architecture and the various DeFi building blocks, including token standards, decentralized exchanges, decentralized debt markets, blockchain derivatives, and on-chain asset management ...
Working Paper
Fiscal Implications of the Federal Reserve's Balance Sheet Normalization
The paper surveys the recent literature on the fiscal implications of central bank balance sheets, with a special focus on political economy issues. It then presents the results of simulations that describe the effects of different scenarios for the Federal Reserve's longer-run balance sheet on its earnings remittances to the U.S. Treasury and, more broadly, on the government's overall fiscal position. We find that reducing longer-run reserve balances from $2.3 trillion (roughly the current amount) to $1 trillion reduces the likelihood of posting a quarterly net loss in the future from 30 ...
Journal Article
Payment Systems and Privacy
Privacy in payments is desired not just for illegal transactions, but also for protection from malfeasance or negligence by counterparties or by the payments system provider itself. Proposals to abolish cash take inadequate account of these legitimate demands for privacy. While central banks can play a useful role in setting standards for payments privacy, they are unlikely to have a comparative advantage at providing privacy. Therefore the replacement of cash by central bank electronic money is likely to spur demand for alternative means of payments to solve specific privacy problems.
Journal Article
A Short Introduction to the World of Cryptocurrencies
In this article, we give a short introduction to cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. The focus of the introduction is on Bitcoin, but many elements are shared by other blockchain implementations and alternative cryptoassets. The article covers the original idea and motivation, the mode of operation and possible applications of cryptocurrencies, and blockchain technology. We conclude that Bitcoin has a wide range of interesting applications and that cryptoassets are well suited to become an important asset class.
Working Paper
Fiscal Implications of the Federal Reserve's Balance Sheet Normalization
The paper surveys the recent literature on the fiscal implications of central bank balance sheets, with a special focus on political economy issues. It then presents the results of simulations that describe the effects of different scenarios for the Federal Reserve's longer-run balance sheet on its earnings remittances to the U.S. Treasury and, more broadly, on the government's overall fiscal position. We find that reducing longer-run reserve balances from $2.3 trillion (roughly the current amount) to $1 trillion reduces the likelihood of posting a quarterly net loss in the future from 30 ...
Report
When does a central bank’s balance sheet require fiscal support?
Using a simple general equilibrium model, we argue that it would be appropriate for a central bank with a large balance sheet composed of long-duration nominal assets to have access to, and be willing to ask for, support for its balance sheet by the fiscal authority. Otherwise its ability to control inflation may be at risk. This need for balance sheet support?a within-government transaction?is distinct from the need for fiscal backing of inflation policy that arises even in models where the central bank?s balance sheet is merged with that of the rest of the government.
Newsletter
The Role of Primary Dealers in Mitigating Liquidity Risk at U.S. Central Counterparties
In this article, we examine the role of primary dealers as clearing members at U.S. central counterparties (CCPs) and their importance in liquidity risk management at those CCPs. We find that primary dealers are key contributors to concentration in central clearing—they make up a significant portion of clearing members and an even larger portion of activity cleared by U.S. CCPs. Second, we find that primary dealers are a major source of interconnectedness across U.S. CCPs. Further, we estimate that the bulk of clearing activity in the U.S. is conducted by the primary dealers that are also ...