Since the early 1990s, commercial banks have turned to Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLBank) advances to plug the gap between loan and deposit growth. Is this trend worrisome? On the one hand, advances implicitly encourage risk by insulating borrowers from market discipline. On the other, advances...

The articles and commentaries included in this volume were presented at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis' fifteenth annual economic policy conference. The conference focused on the effects of a variety of recent changes in the market for financial services in the United States. This market...