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Journal Article
The emergence of \\"regular and predictable\\" as a Treasury debt management strategy
During the 1970s, U.S. Treasury officials revised the framework within which they selected the maturities of new notes and bonds. Previously, they chose maturities on an offering-by-offering basis. By 1982, the Treasury had ceased these "tactical" sales and was selling notes and bonds on a "regular and predictable" schedule. This article describes that key change in the Treasury's debt management strategy. The author shows that in 1975, Treasury officials financed an unusually rapid expansion of the federal deficit with a flurry of tactical offerings. Because the timing and maturities ...
Report
Anomalous bidding in short-term Treasury bill auctions
We show that Treasury bill auction procedures create classes of price-equivalent discount rates for bills with fewer than seventy-two days to maturity. We argue that it is inefficient for market participants to bid at a discount rate that is not the minimum rate in its class. The inefficiency of bidding at a rate other than the minimum is related to a quantity shortfall rather than an unexploited profit opportunity. Auction results for weekly offerings of four-week bills and occasional offerings of cash management bills show that market participants frequently bid at inefficient rates. ...
Discussion Paper
Market Function Purchases by the Federal Reserve
In response to disorderly market conditions in mid-March 2020, the Federal Reserve began an asset purchase program designed to improve market functioning in the Treasury and agency mortgage-backed securities (MBS) markets. The 2020 purchases have no parallel, but there are several instances of large SOMA purchases undertaken to support Treasury market functions in earlier decades. This post recaps three such episodes, one in 1939 at the start of World War II, one in 1958 in connection with a poorly received Treasury financing, and a third in 1970, also in connection with a Treasury financing. ...
Discussion Paper
The Treasury Market Practices Group: A Consequential First Decade
The Treasury Market Practices Group (TMPG) was formed in February 2007 in response to the appearance of some questionable trading practices in the secondary market for U.S. Treasury securities. (A history of the origins of the TMPG is available here.) Left unaddressed, the practices threatened to harm the efficiency and integrity of an essential global benchmark market. The Group responded by identifying and publicizing “best practices” in trading Treasury securities—a statement of behavioral norms intended to maintain a level and competitive playing field for all market participants. ...
Discussion Paper
If Interest Rates Go Negative . . . Or, Be Careful What You Wish For
The United States has slid into eight recessions in the last fifty years. Each time, the Federal Reserve sought to revive economic activity by reducing interest rates (see chart below). However, since the end of the last recession in June 2009, the economy has continued to sputter even though short-term rates have remained near zero. The weak recovery has led some commentators to suggest that the Fed should push short-term rates even lower?below zero?so that borrowers receive, and creditors pay, interest.
Report
Repurchase agreements as an instrument of monetary policy at the time of the Accord
Following the Treasury?Federal Reserve Accord of March 3, 1951, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) focused on free reserves?the difference between excess reserves (reserve deposits in excess of reserve requirements) and borrowed reserves?as the touchstone of U.S. monetary policy. However, managing free reserves was problematic because highly variable and not readily predictable autonomous factors, including float, Treasury balances at Federal Reserve Banks, and currency in the hands of the public, induced comparable volatility and unpredictability in reserve deposits and hence in free ...
Discussion Paper
Interest-Bearing Securities When Interest Rates are Below Zero
Negative interest rates have evolved, over the past few years, from a topic of modest academic interest to a practical reality. Short- and intermediate-term sovereign debt of several European countries, including Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden, Austria, and Switzerland, now trades at negative yields.
Report
Buybacks in Treasury cash and debt management
This paper examines the use of buybacks in Treasury cash and debt management. We review the mechanics and results of the buyback operations conducted in 2000-01, during a time of budget surpluses, and assess the prospective use of buybacks in the absence of a surplus. Possible future applications include (i) managing the liquidity of the new-issue markets when deficits are declining (by allowing Treasury officials to postpone a decision to discontinue a series without also being compelled to shrink new-issue sizes); (ii) actively promoting the liquidity of the new-issue markets (by ...
Report
The first debt ceiling crisis
In the second half of 1953 the United States, for the first time, risked exceeding the statutory limit on Treasury debt. This paper describes how Congress, the White House, and Treasury officials dealt with the looming crisis?by deferring and reducing expenditures, monetizing ?free? gold that remained from the devaluation of the dollar in 1934, and, ultimately, raising the debt ceiling.
Report
Federal Reserve Participation in Public Treasury Offerings
This paper describes the evolution of Federal Reserve participation in public Treasury offerings. It covers the pre-1935 period, when the Fed participated on an equal footing with other investors in exchange offerings priced by Treasury officials, to its present-day practice of reinvesting the proceeds of maturing securities with “add-ons” priced in public auctions in which the Fed does not participate. The paper describes how the Federal Reserve System adapted its operating procedures to comply with the 1935 limitations on its Treasury purchases, how it modified its operating procedures ...