The economic crisis that began in 2007 and still lingers has invited comparison with the Great Depression of the 1930s. It has also generated renewed interest in Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz's explanation of the latter as mainly the consequence of the Fed's failure as a lender of last...

This model provides a simple weekly model of the regular supply of liquidity in the euro area, with a view to understanding the functioning of the euro area money market. The main result of the analysis is that liquidity has normally been provided by the ECB in a neutral and smooth manner, but...

A description of the little-known rules governing the holding of required clearing balances at the Federal Reserve Banks, a look at the growing popularity of this relatively new phenomenon, and an analysis of its impact on the setting and measuring of monetary policy.

An argument for an institutional reform to lengthen the reserve- accounting period from one week to four weeks and to stagger the reserve-accounting periods among four groups of banks. Such staggered- reserve accounting would allow the Federal Reserve to set operating targets for total reserves.

Overview of the proceedings of a conference sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York entitled Financial Innovation and Monetary Transmission