First, we show that the interest rate on Federal funds is extremely informative about future movements of real macroeconomic variables, more so than monetary aggregates or other interest rates. Next, we argue that the reason for this forecasting is that the funds rate sensitively records shocks...

Many authors argue that asymmetric information between the Federal Reserve and the public is important to the conduct and the effects of monetary policy. This paper tests for the existence of such asymmetric information by examining Federal Reserve and commercial inflation forecasts. We...

Central banks no longer set the short-term interest rates that they use for monetary policy purposes by manipulating the supply of banking system reserves, as in conventional economics textbooks; today this process involves little or no variation in the supply of central bank liabilities. In...

In the new situation with flexible exchange rates, monetary policy in Europe will have to rely more on indicators than previously under fixed rates. One of the potential indicators, the forward interest rate curve, can be used to indicate market expectations of the time-paths of future short...

This paper reviews alternative options for monetary policy when the short-term interest rate is at the zero lower bound and develops new empirical estimates of the effects of the maturity structure of publicly held debt on the term structure of interest rates. We use a model of risk-averse...

We study the liquidity demand of large settlement banks in the UK and its effect on the Sterling Money Markets before and during the sub-prime crisis of 2007-08. Liquidity holdings of large settlement banks experienced on average a 30% increase in the period immediately following 9th August,...

In 1936-37, the Federal Reserve doubled the reserve requirements imposed on member banks. Ever since, the question of whether the doubling of reserve requirements increased reserve demand and produced a contraction of money and credit, and thereby helped to cause the recession of 1937-1938, has...