The 1980 Monetary Control Act requires Reserve Banks to recover their costs of providing payments services over time, including a normal return on capital-that is, the same after-tax return on equity that a private firm would require. To date, this private-sector adjustment factor has been...

This paper presents an empirical analysis of commercial bank holdings of municipal securities (munis) from June 1985 through December 1988, using the FFIEC's Reports of Condition and income. While motivated by previous analyses suggesting that a shift from munis to taxable securities is a...