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Is the Discount Window Necessary?

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Is the Discount Window Necessary? Charles W. Calomiris Charles W Calomiris is associate professor of finance, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; faculty research fellow, National Bureau of Economic Research; and visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Lou/s. Greg Chaudoin, Thekla Halouva and Christopher A. Williams provided research assistance. The data analysis for this article was conducted in part at the University of Illinois and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chica got 11~Jsthe Discount Window Necessary? A Penn Central Perspective N RECENT YEARS, ECONOMISTS have come Some economists (Goodfmiend and King, 1988; to question the desirability of granting banks Bordo, 1990; Kaufman, 1991, 1992; and Schwartz, the privilege of borrowing from the Federal 1992) have argued that there is no gain from al- Reserve’s discount window. The discount win- lowing the Fed to lend through the discount dow’s detractors cite several disadvantages. window. These cmitics argue that open market First, the Fed’s control over high-powet-ed operations can accomplish all legitimate policy money can be hampered. tf bank borrowing be- goals without resort to Federal Reserve lending havior is hard to predict, open market opera- to banks. Clearly, if the only policy goal is to tions cannot pem’fectly peg high-powered money, peg the supply of high-powered money, open which somne economists believe the Fed should market operations are a sufficient tool. Similar- do. Second, there are microeconomic concerns ly, the Fed could peg interest rates on traded about potential abuse of the discount window securities by purchasing or selling them. Any argument for a possible role for the discount (Schwartz1 1992). Critics argue that the discount tvindov has been misused as a transfer scheme window must demonstrate that pegging the ag- to hail out (or postpone the failure of) troubled gregate level of reserves in the economy, Or or insolvent financial institutions that should be controlling the riskless interest rate on traded closed quickly to prevent desperate acts of fraud securities, is insufficient to accomplish a legiti- om’ excess risk taking by bank managemnent. In mate policy objective that can be accomplished response to growing criticism of Fed lending to through Fed discounting. prop up failing banks, Congress mandated limits In this article, I examine theoretical assumnp- on discount lending to distressed banks, which tions that may justify the existence of the dis- went into effect on December 19, 1993. count window. I argue that there is little cum’rent role for the discount window to protect against window was the primary mechanism for achiev- bank panics. ‘I’he main role of the discount win- ing these goals. The 12 regional Federal Reserve dow is in defusing disruptive liquidity crises Banks offered an alternative to the private inter- that occur in particular normbarmk financial mar- bank deposit market as depositories of bank kets. I discuss evidence from the Penn Central reserves. The architects of the Fed expected to crisis of 1970, which seems consistent with that eliminate reserve ‘pyramiding,” which chan- view, and conclude by considering whether this neled interhank deposits to New York, where evidence is relevant for today’s relatively sophisti- they often were used to finance securities mar- cated financial environment. ket transactions (White, 1983). lnterbank lend- ing was viewed by some as a problem because Backup protection for financial markets it encouraged dependency of the nation’s banks through the discount window could he achieved on New York hankers and placed funds into the at little cost if access to the discount window hands of securities market speculators. were confined to periods of financial disruption. During normal times, open market operations The discount window also pm’omised to reduce and interhank lending would be sufficient for the seasonal volatility of interest rates and in- determining the aggregate amount of reserves crease the seasonal elasticity of bank lending by in the banking system and theim allocation providing an elastic supply of reserves, allowing among banks. bank balance sheets to expand seasonally without incm’easing the loan-to-asset ratio. Prior to the A first step toward envisioning a role for any creation of the Fed, hank expansion of loans in financial institution or policy instrument, includ- peak seasons led to costly increases in portfolio ing the discount window, must be the relaxation risk (a higher loan-to-asset ratio), or costly of the assumptions of zero physical costs of seasonal importation of specie. This implied an transacting and/or symmetric information. The upward sloping loan supply function with lam’ge discount window’s benefit, if any, must be relat- interest rate variation over the seasonal cycle ed to its role in helping to economize on costs (Miron, 1986; Calomiris and Hubbard, 1989; and in capital markets, which themselves are a func- Calomiris and Gom’ton, 1991). tion of physical or informational “imperfections.” I divide the discussion of potential justifications Finally, the availability of the discount window for the discount window into two parts— was also expected to reduce the risk of bank assistance to financial intem’mecliaries and panics in two ways. First, by increasing the assistance to particular financial markets. availability of reserves, the discount window limited seasonal increases in portfolio risk and reductions in hank liquidity (luring high-lending 1~ ririu:f;,T, DISc.i1L...r N’I’ %j/lNIIfO’i4 /%~~‘Li) months, thus reducing the risk of pam~ics.Sec- B.A.i.V.K1.Nfi PANICS ond, the discount window would provide a source of liquidity to banks if an unpredictable The Federal Reserve System was created in withdm’awal of deposits in the form of currency 1913 with three primam’y objectives: to eliminate created a shortage of reserves that threatened the ‘‘pyramiding’’ of reserves in New York City the liquidity of the banking system (as in Dia- and replace it with a polvcentric system of 12 mond and Dybvig, 1983).’ But the discount win- reserve banks; to create a more seasonally elas- dow offered limited protection to banks from tic supply of hank credit; and to reduce the a panic induced by adverse economic news. propensity for banking panics. The discount Because access to the discount windo~vwas 1 lf money-demand disturbances were the cause of banking banks have special information about their portfolios, then panics, as envisioned in Diamond and Dybvig (1983), then a government policy of purchasing bank loans during a cri- open market operations, as normally defined, would be a sis at pre-panic prices would have the same costs and sufficient tool for policy if the central bank were permitted benefits as allowing banks access to the discount window. to purchase bank loans. Since bank loans are not “spe- cial” in that framework (that is, there is no delegated con- trol and monitoring function performed by the banker and, hence, no potential for adverse selection or moral hazard), it is natural to think of standard open market operations as including purchases of bank debt in the context of that model. If, however, banking panics are produced by cont u- sion over the incidence of shocks to the value of bank as- sets, as argued in Calomiris and Gorton (1991). and if limited by strict collateral requirements, bank ferring funds out of the banking system. Banks hortowing was limited to the amount of eligible and their’ borrowers benefit by keeping the collateral the bank possessed.2 Thus, Federal hanking system from shrinking. Reserve Banks could not use the discount win- dow to shore up banks if their depositors lost If hank credits and deposits play special roles confidence in the quality of the hank’s illiquid in financing and clearing transactions, then con- loan portfolio. The collateral required for tractions in hank activity will he costly. The dis- discount window lending was subsequently count window can he thought of as a way to broadened in the 1 930s. coordinate a mutually beneficial decision among depositors not to withdraw their deposits during ‘11w history of the pre-Fed era suggests that the earls’ limitations on discount window lend- panics. Removing the private incentive for depo- ing were important. (iorton (1989), Calomiris sitors to withdraw their funds makes all deposi- tom’s better off. While private deposits fall, and Gorton (19911, and Calomiris and Schwei- kart (1991) have argued that sudden withdraw- public “deposits’’ made through the discount window (the indirect assets of the public) rise to als from the banking system occurred when compensate. Open market operations would not depositors received news about the state of the he an adequate substitute policy. Open market economy that was had enough to make them operations would simply insulate the money think that some banks were insolvent. Because supply from the reduction in the mone mul- depositors were uninformed about the incidence tiplier as hank deposits and hank credit fell; of this disturbance across individual banks (be- they would not reduce withdrawals from banks. cause of depositors’ limited information about bank portfolios) all banks’ depositors had an Thus, one could argue for central hank adop- incentive to withdraw funds from their banks tion of the following rule fom’ use of a”backup” until they could better ascertain the risks of in- discount window: Undem- normal circumstances dividual banks. ‘I’hus, relatively small aggregate (when there is no general systemic banking pan- insolvency risk could have large costs through ic reducing private deposits in hanks), the cen- from disintermediation banks. tral hank provides no loans to banks. During a Costs associated with hanking panics can moti- systemic crisis, the central bank agrees to pro- ~‘ate a more aggressive policy than one requir- vide loans to banks up to the amount of deposi- ing riskless collateral for all central bank lending.
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