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Discussion Paper
How the Fed Smoothed Quarter-End Volatility in the Fed Funds Market
The federal funds market is an important source of short-term funding for U.S. banks. In this market, banks borrow reserves on an unsecured basis from other banks and from government-sponsored enterprises, typically overnight. Before the financial crisis, the Federal Reserve implemented monetary policy by targeting the overnight fed funds rate and then adjusting the supply of bank reserves every day to keep the rate close to the target. Before the crisis, reserves were generally in scarce supply, which periodically caused temporary spikes in the fed funds rate during times of high demand, ...
Report
Trade dynamics in the market for federal funds
We use minute-by-minute daily transaction-level payments data to document the cross-sectional and time-series behavior of the estimated prices and quantities negotiated by commercial banks in the interbank market. We study the frequency and volume of trade, the size distribution of loans, the distribution of bilateral rates, and the intraday dynamics of the reserve balances held by commercial banks. We find evidence of the importance of the liquidity provision achieved by commercial banks that act as de facto intermediaries of funds.
Journal Article
How Did the Fed Funds Market Change When Excess Reserves Were Abundant?
Prior to the 2007-2008 financial crisis, excess reserves in the U.S. banking system were scarce. After the financial crisis and up until early 2018, excess reserves were abundant. In this article, the authors document, analyze, and explain the differences in the performance of the federal funds market under the two different excess reserves frameworks.