During the 2007-2010 financial crisis, central banks accumulated a vast amount of experience in acting as lender of last resort. This paper reviews the various ways that central banks provided emergency liquidity assistance (ELA) during the crisis, and discusses issues for the design of ELA...

Several central bankers have expressed concern that providing forecasts of future policy rates may impair financial-market functioning.We look for evidence of such impairment by examining the behavior of financial markets in the United States, the euro area, and New Zealand in light of the...

Central bank communication has changed dramatically over the past decade, with some central banks providing guidance about or explicit forecasts of likely future policy rates. One frequently made argument against the provision by central banks of such guidance or forecasts is that it runs the...

This report is in response to a national and state interest in the potential benefits of industrial hemp as an alternative crop. Industrial hemp has many uses which can be categorized into nine submarkets. North Dakota may have a comparative advantage in producing industrial hemp seed for oil...

During the 2007-09 financial crisis, there were severe reductions in the liquidity of financial markets, runs on the shadow banking system, and destabilizing defaults and near-defaults of major financial institutions. In response, the Federal Reserve, in its role as lender of last resort (LOLR),...

U.S. commercial banks had another excellent year in 1997. Their return on equity remained in the elevated range that it has occupied for five consecutive years, and their return on assets reached a new high. Banks maintained their profitability while also adding significantly to assets. The...

The Federal Reserve's quarterly Survey of Terms of Business Lending, which has been conducted for more than twenty years, collects information on interest rates and other characteristics of commercial bank business loans. The survey has been changed from time to time to recognize innovations in...

The performance of the U.S. commercial banking industry remained strong in 1998, but slipped a bit from the remarkable results of recent years. Both the return on assets and the return on equity edged down last year, although they remained high by historical standards. While supported by growth...