Search Results
Journal Article
Measuring the Stance of Monetary Policy on and off the Zero Lower Bound
Taeyoung Doh and Jason Choi propose a new ?shadow? short-term interest rate to measure the stance of policy when the federal funds rate was constrained by the zero lower bound.
Journal Article
Financial Market Conditions during Monetary Tightening
The current round of federal funds rate increases is expected to reverse a historically large gap between the real funds rate and the neutral rate at the beginning of the tightening cycle. Financial markets have reacted faster and more strongly than in past monetary tightening cycles, in part because of this large gap and the Federal Reserve’s forward guidance. Historical experiences suggest financial conditions could tighten even more given the size of the gap.
Newsletter
Minding the Output Gap: What Is Potential GDP and Why Does It Matter?
Potential output is an estimate of what the economy could produce. Actual output is what the economy does produce. If actual is below potential -- a negative output gap -- there is "slack" in the economy. If actual is above potential -- a positive output gap -- resources are fully employed, or perhaps overutilized. This issue of Page One Economics explains how the output gap is useful for checking the health of the economy. It also points out how errors in the estimation of potential real GDP can reduce the effectiveness of policy.
Journal Article
Mitigating COVID-19 Effects with Conventional Monetary Policy
The Federal Reserve slashed the federal funds rate in response to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The full impact of the pandemic on the economy is still uncertain and depends on many factors. Analysis suggests that allowing the federal funds rate to fall fast will help the economy cope with the aftermath of COVID-19. In particular, the limited policy space due to the effective lower bound of the federal funds rate before the pandemic reinforces rather than offsets the need for a rapid funds rate decline.
President Bullard Explains His Recent FOMC Dissent
St. Louis Fed President Jim Bullard discusses why he cast a dissenting vote at the FOMC meeting in March 2022.
Speech
Steering Toward Sustainable Growth
Presentation to the UNLV Center for Business and Economic Research (CBER) Spring Outlook 2022,April 20, 2022, by Mary C. Daly, President and Chief Executive Officer, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
Speech
President Bullard Explains His Recent FOMC Dissent
Statement by Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President Jim Bullard explaining his dissenting vote at the FOMC’s March 15-16, 2022, meeting.
Working Paper
Excess Reserves and Monetary Policy Implementation
In response to the Great Recession, the Federal Reserve resorted to several unconventional policies that drastically altered the landscape of the federal funds market. The current environment, in which depository institutions are flush with excess reserves, has forced policymakers to design a new operational framework for monetary policy implementation. We provide a parsimonious model that captures the key features of the current federal funds market along with the instruments introduced by the Federal Reserve to implement its target for the federal funds rate. We use this model to analyze ...
Working Paper
An Empirical Study of Trade Dynamics in the Fed Funds Market
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 fed funds market. We study the frequency and volume of trade, the size distribution of loans, the distribution of bilateral fed funds 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 fed funds.
Journal Article
Further Evidence on Greenspan’s Conundrum
During his February 2005 congressional testimony, Alan Greenspan identified what he termed a conundrum. Despite the fact that the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) had increased the federal funds rate 150 basis points since June 2004, the 10-year Treasury yield remained essentially unchanged. Greenspan considered several explanations for his observation but rejected each. Thornton (2018) showed that the relationship between the 10-year Treasury yield and the federal funds rate changed in the late 1980s, many years prior to Greenspan's observation. Moreover, he showed that the relationship ...