Prior to 2008, the Fed could accelerate or decelerate inflation by expanding or contracting the monetary base and therefore bank reserves with open market operations and/or with repo loans to dealers. Since 2008, however, the Fed has paid interest on excess reserves equal to or even higher…
If you haven't seen much of me on these pages lately, that's because I've spent most of the last few weeks feeding and grooming my favorite hobby horse: that's right, the Fed's policy of encouraging banks to hoard reserves by paying above-market rates on their Fed reserve…
In our recent American Banker opinion piece, Heritage's Norbert Michel and I argue that, if the Fed is really serious about shrinking its balance sheet, it had better quit paying interest on banks' excess reserves (IOER) as well. How come? Because the current, relatively high IOER rate …
In March, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) signaled it could begin shrinking the Fed’s balance sheet sometime later this year. However, with limited official details about what that means and none forthcoming from last week’s FOMC press release, many questions remain: How will the Fed decide…