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Discussion Paper
Sizing Up the Fed's Maturity Extension Program
The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) recently announced its intention to extend the average maturity of its holdings of securities by purchasing $400 billion of Treasury securities with remaining maturities of six years to thirty years and selling an equal amount of Treasury securities with remaining maturities of three years or less. The nominal size of this maturity extension program, at $400 billion, is smaller than the $600 billion of purchases during the second round of large-scale asset purchases (LSAP 2) completed in June 2011. The two programs are more comparable in size, however, ...
Report
The effects of policy guidance on perceptions of the Fed’s reaction function
In the past few years, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) has been using forward guidance about the federal funds rate in a more explicit way than ever before. This paper explores the market reaction to the forward guidance, with particular focus on the use of calendar dates and economic thresholds in the FOMC statement. The results show that market participants interpreted the FOMC?s policy guidance as conveying important information about the Committee?s policy reaction function. In particular, market participants came to expect the FOMC to wait for lower levels of unemployment for a ...