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Discussion Paper
How the Fed Changes the Size of Its Balance Sheet
The size of the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet increased greatly between 2009 and 2014 owing to large-scale asset purchases. The balance sheet has stayed at a high level since then through the ongoing reinvestment of principal repayments on securities that the Fed holds. When the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) decides to reduce the size of the Fed’s balance sheet, it is expected to do so by gradually reducing the pace of reinvestments, as outlined in the June 2017 addendum to the FOMC’s Policy Normalization Principles and Plans. How do asset purchases increase the size of the ...
Discussion Paper
A Closer Look at the Fed’s Balance Sheet Accounting
An earlier post on how the Fed changes the size of its balance sheet prompted several questions from readers about the Federal Reserve’s accounting of asset purchases and the payment of principal by the Treasury on Treasury securities owned by the Fed. In this post, we provide a more detailed explanation of the accounting rules that govern these transactions.
Working Paper
The Causes of Household Bankruptcy: The Interaction of Income Shocks and Balance Sheets
We examine how household balance sheets and income statements interact to affect bankruptcy decisions following an exogenous income shock. For identification, we exploit government payments in one but not any other Canadian province that varied exogenously based on family size. Receiving a larger income shock from the payment (relative to household income) reduces the count of bankruptcies, with fewer remaining filers having higher net balance sheet benefits of bankruptcy (unsecured debt discharged minus liquidated assets forgone). Receiving an income shock thus causes households that would ...
Speech
The FOMC’s Plan for Significantly Reducing the Federal Reserve’s Securities Holdings
In my brief prepared remarks, I will describe how the FOMC intends to significantly reduce the security holdings on its balance sheet. The views I present today will be my own and not necessarily those of the Federal Reserve System or of my colleagues on the Federal Open Market Committee.
Discussion Paper
How the Fed Changes the Size of Its Balance Sheet: The Case of Mortgage-Backed Securities
In our previous post, we considered balance sheet mechanics related to the Federal Reserve's purchase and redemption of Treasury securities. These mechanics are fairly straightforward and help to illustrate the basic relationships among actors in the financial system. Here, we turn to transactions involving agency mortgage-backed securities (MBS), which are somewhat more complicated. We focus particularly on what happens when households pay down their mortgages, either through regular monthly amortizations or a large payment covering some or all of the outstanding balance, as might occur with ...
Working Paper
The Financial Market Effects of Unwinding the Federal Reserve’s Balance Sheet
For the second time in the brief 12-year period between 2008 and 2020, central banks have once again turned to asset purchase programs to combat a global economic downturn. While balance sheet expansions have become familiar, balance sheet normalization has proven more elusive. Nevertheless, an understanding of the consequences of unwinding asset purchases is necessary for well-informed decisions over the deployment of these unconventional policy tools. This paper provides a first analysis of the financial market effects of balance sheet normalization based on the U.S. experience between 2017 ...
Journal Article
Monetary Policy Stance Is Tighter than Federal Funds Rate
The Federal Reserve’s use of forward guidance and balance sheet policy means that monetary policy consists of more than changing the federal funds rate target. A proxy federal funds rate that incorporates data from financial markets can help assess the broader stance of monetary policy. This proxy measure shows that, since late 2021, monetary policy has been substantially tighter than the federal funds rate indicates. Tightening financial conditions are similar to what would be expected if the funds rate had exceeded 5¼% by September 2022.
Journal Article
Why Do Net Interest Margins Behave Differently across Banks as Interest Rates Rise?
Rising interest rates can influence bank profitability positively (by increasing payments from those with floating-rate debt) or negatively (by forcing banks to offer higher returns to their depositors). Although most banks became more profitable as the Federal Reserve raised rates in 2022–23, a smaller group of banks saw consistent decreases in their net interest margins (NIMs). Understanding why these banks’ NIMs declined may provide useful insight to policymakers concerned with vulnerabilities in the banking system.Brendan Laliberte and Rajdeep Sengupta explore the differences in bank ...