Briefing

Large Excess Reserves and the Relationship between Money and Prices

Abstract: As a consequence of the Federal Reserve's response to the financial crisis of 2007?08 and the Great Recession, the supply of reserves in the U.S. banking system increased dramatically. Historically, over long horizons, money and prices have been closely tied together, but over the past decade, prices have risen only modestly while base money (reserves plus currency) has grown substantially. A macroeconomic model helps explain this behavior and suggests some potential limits to the Fed's ability to increase the size of its balance sheet indefinitely while remaining consistent with its inflation-targeting policy.

Keywords: reserves; macroeconomic models; decoupling;

Bibliographic Information

Provider: Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond

Part of Series: Richmond Fed Economic Brief

Publication Date: 2019

Issue: February