This paper derives a central bank’s optimal liquidity supply towards a money market with an unrestricted lending facility. We show that when the effect of liquidity on market rates is not too small, and the monetary authority cares for both interest rates and liquidity conditions, then the...

The fixed rate tender is one of the main procedural formats relied upon by central banks in their implementation of monetary policy. This fact stands in a somewhat puzzling contrast to the prevalent view in the theoretical literature that the procedure, by fixing interest rate and quantity at...

On several occasions during the period 2001-2003, the European Central Bank (ECB) decided to deviate from its “neutral” benchmark allotment rule, with the effect of not alleviating a temporary liquidity shortage in the banking system. This is remarkable because it implied the possibility of...

This article derives a central bank's optimal liquidity supply towards a money market with an unrestricted lending facility. We show that when the effect of liquidity on market rates is not too small, and the monetary authority is concerned with both interest rates and liquidity conditions, then...

It has been argued in the literature that emergency liquidity injections should be conducted preferably in the form of open market operations. As we show in the present paper, this is not necessarily the case when liquidity may be alternatively used for speculative purposes during the crisis. In...

We study the problem of a leveraged investor that is forced to unwind a significant fraction of its portfolio in a collection of illiquid markets. It is shown that markets may become disrupted in response to a relatively small liquidity shock. As a consequence, the probability of default can be...