Discussion Paper

Who’s Lending in the Federal Funds Market?

Abstract: The fed funds market is important to the framework and implementation of U.S. monetary policy. The Federal Open Market Committee sets a target level or range for the fed funds rate and directs the Trading Desk of the New York Fed to create ?conditions in reserve markets? that will encourage fed funds to trade at the target level. In this post, we use various publicly available data sources to estimate the size and composition of fed funds lending activity. We find that the fed funds market has shrunk considerably since the financial crisis and that lending activity is now dominated by one group of market participants.

Keywords: Fed funds; lending;

JEL Classification: G1;G2;E5;

Bibliographic Information

Provider: Federal Reserve Bank of New York

Part of Series: Liberty Street Economics

Publication Date: 2013-12-02

Number: 20131202