As part of its response to the global banking crisis and a sharp downturn in domestic economic prospects, the Bank of England' s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) began a programme of large-scale asset purchases (commonly referred to as quantitative easing or QE) in March 2009, with the aim of...

It is widely believed that the Fed controls the funds rate by altering the degree of pressure in the reserve market through open market operations when it changes its target for the federal funds rate. Recently, however, several economists have suggested that open market operations may not be...