Target Practice: Monetary Policy Implementation in a Post-Crisis Environment∗
Target practice: Monetary policy implementation in a post-crisis environment∗ Elizabeth Klee and Viktors Stebunovs† December 10, 2012 Abstract Traditionally, the Federal Reserve targeted the federal funds rate, expecting this rate to transmit a monetary policy stance to other short-term and longer-term rates. However, at the height of the financial crisis, the pass-through from the federal funds rate to other short-term rates deteriorated. Furthermore, market participants reportedly anticipate that the inception of liquidity requirements might weaken the federal funds market and therefore its linkages with other money markets. At the same time, however, most anticipate that high quality collateral repo markets should remain active. We argue that, in principle, instead of the federal funds rate, the Federal Reserve can target the Treasury General Collateral repurchase agreement rate, and explore the Federal Reserve’s capacity to do so empirically. Our results suggest that a target repo rate might be an alternative policy tool to the target federal funds rate in the post-crisis environment. Keywords: target federal funds rate, Treasury general collateral repo rate, liquidity cov- erage requirements, liquidity effect, monetary policy implementation framework, open market operations, M3. ∗Very preliminary. Do not cite or quote without permission. The views expressed in this paper are solely the responsibility of the authors and should not be interpreted as reflecting the views of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System or of anyone else associated with the Federal Reserve System. †We thank the discussant, Gabriel P´erez Quiro, and the participants of the ECB workshop “The post-crisis design of the operational framework for the implementation of monetary policy” and seminar participants at the Swiss National Bank for helpful comments.
[Show full text]