tailieunhanh - Interest on Excess Reserves as a Monetary Policy Instrument: The Experience of Foreign Central Banks

As the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision has pointed out, it has become increasingly important to look beyond the traditional earnings and economic value effects and assess indirect interest rate effects as well. Taking a broader view of the potential earnings impact of changing interest rates, banks also need to take into consideration the growing share of (interest-sensitive) fee- based fi nancial services (loan servicing, asset securitization programs, pay- ments etc.). Further indirect effects stem from in the evolution of the balance sheet (structural effects) and from the downgrading of borrowers (credit rating effect). As a case in point, portfolio shifts. | Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System International Finance Discussion Papers Number 996 March 2010 Interest on Excess Reserves as a Monetary Policy Instrument The Experience of Foreign Central Banks David Bowman Etienne Gagnon and Mike Leahy NOTE International International Finance Discussion Papers are preliminary materials circulated to stimulate discussion and critical comment. References to International Finance Discussion Papers other than an acknowledgment that the writer has had access to unpublished material should be cleared with the author or authors. Recent IFDPs are available on the Web at pubs ifdp . This paper can be downloaded without charge from Social Science Research Network electronic library at . Interest on Excess Reserves as a Monetary Policy Instrument The Experience of Foreign Central Banks David Bowman Etienne Gagnon and Mike Leahy Abstract This paper reviews the experience of eight major foreign central banks with policy interest rates comparable to the interest rate on excess reserves paid by the Federal Reserve. We pursue two main lines of inquiry 1 To what extent have these policy interest rates been lower bounds for short-term market rates and 2 to what extent has tightening that included increasing these policy rates been achieved without reliance on reductions in reserves or other deposits held at the central bank The foreign experience suggests that policy rate floors can be effective lower bounds for market rates although incomplete access to central bank accounts and interest on them weakens this result. In addition the foreign experience suggests that tightening by increasing the interest rate paid on central bank balances can help reduce or eliminate the need to drain balances. These results are consistent with theoretical results that show that tightening without draining is possible irrespective of whether excess reserves are large or small. Keywords excess reserves policy .