Search Results
Journal Article
Dollarization as a monetary arrangement for emerging market economies
Official dollarization refers to the adoption of the U.S. dollar as legal tender in place of the national currency. Some Latin American countries have recently dollarized, and others have seriously considered dollarization. This article discusses the reasons behind the surge of interest in dollarization and provides a review of the new academic literature on the topic. It discusses in detail some of the factors that are commonly considered to be the important costs and benefits of dollarizing. The paper also provides an analysis of the existing liability dollarization in several countries and ...
Journal Article
Why are banks holding so many excess reserves?
The buildup of reserves in the U.S. banking system during the financial crisis has fueled concerns that the Federal Reserve's policies may have failed to stimulate the flow of credit in the economy: banks, it appears, are amassing funds rather than lending them out. However, a careful examination of the balance sheet effects of central bank actions shows that the high level of reserves is simply a by-product of the Fed's new lending facilities and asset purchase programs. The total quantity of reserves in the banking system reflects the scale of the Fed's policy initiatives, but conveys no ...
Journal Article
Stability of funding models: an analytical framework
With the recent financial crisis, many financial intermediaries experienced strains created by declining asset values and a loss of funding sources. In reviewing these stress events, one notices that some arrangements appear to have been more stable?that is, better able to withstand shocks to their asset values and/or funding sources?than others. Because the precise determinants of this stability are not well understood, gaining a better grasp of them is a critical task for market participants and policymakers as they try to design more resilient arrangements and improve financial regulation. ...
Journal Article
Divorcing money from monetary policy
Many central banks implement monetary policy in a way that maintains a tight link between the stock of money and the short-term interest rate. In particular, their implementation procedures require that the supply of reserve balances be set precisely in order to implement the target interest rate. Because bank reserves play other key roles in the economy, this link can create tensions with other important objectives, especially in times of acute market stress. This article considers an alternative approach to monetary policy implementation -- known as a "floor system" -- that can reduce ...
Discussion Paper
Cash Assets of Foreign Banks: An Example of Seasonal Adjustment Gone Awry
Federal Reserve Statistical Release H.8 provides aggregate data on the assets and liabilities of commercial banks in the United States. Two types of data are provided: one in which each series is adjusted to offset regular, seasonal movements, and another in which no adjustment is made. Recently, a striking pattern has emerged in one particular data series: the cash assets of foreign-related banking institutions.[1] In the seasonally adjusted data, this value has fallen 36 percent since its peak in June 2011?a sharp movement that has generated concern among market observers. The nonseasonally ...
Report
Can Redemption Fees Prevent Runs on Funds?
We ask whether imposing fees on redeeming investors can prevent runs on money market mutual funds (MMFs) and related intermediation arrangements. We first show that imposing a fee only in extraordinary times often leaves the fund susceptible to a preemptive run where investors rush to redeem before the fee applies. We then show how a policy that imposes a fee when current redemption demand is above a threshold, even in normal times, can make the fund run proof. We characterize the best policy of this type, which is immune to a run of any size. We show that the reform adopted in the U.S. in ...
Report
Stablecoins vs. Tokenized Deposits: The Narrow Banking Debate Revisited
We study how the type of money used in blockchain-based trade affects interest rates, investment, and welfare. Stablecoins in our model are backed by safe assets, while banks issue deposits (both traditional and tokenized) to fund a portfolio of safe and risky assets. Deposit insurance creates a risk-shifting incentive for banks, and regulation increases banks’ costs. If regulatory costs are large and risk-shifting is limited, we show that allowing only tokenized deposits to be used in crypto trade raises welfare by expanding bank credit. If regulation is lighter and the risk-shifting ...
Report
Floor systems and the Friedman rule: the fiscal arithmetic of open market operations
In a floor system of monetary policy implementation, the central bank remunerates bank reserves at or near the market rate of interest. Some observers have expressed concern that operating such a system will have adverse fiscal consequences for the public sector and may even require the government to subsidize the central bank. We show that this is not the case. Using the monetary general equilibrium model of Berentsen et al. (2014), we show how a central bank that supplies reserves through open market operations can always generate non-negative net income, even when using a floor system to ...
Report
Why are banks holding so many excess reserves?
The quantity of reserves in the U.S. banking system has risen dramatically since September 2008. Some commentators have expressed concern that this pattern indicates that the Federal Reserve's liquidity facilities have been ineffective in promoting the flow of credit to firms and households. Others have argued that the high level of reserves will be inflationary. We explain, through a series of examples, why banks are currently holding so many reserves. The examples show how the quantity of bank reserves is determined by the size of the Federal Reserve's policy initiatives and in no way ...
Report
Expectations versus fundamentals: does the cause of banking panics matter for prudential policy?
There is a longstanding debate about whether banking panics and other financial crises always have fundamental causes or are sometimes the result of self-fulfilling beliefs. Disagreement on this point would seem to present a serious obstacle to designing policies that promote financial stability. However, we show that the appropriate choice of policy is invariant to the underlying cause of banking panics in some situations. In our model, the anticipation of being bailed out in the event of a crisis distorts the incentives of financial institutions and their investors. Two policies that aim to ...