Modern Money Mechanics 7
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Federal Reserve Actions Affecting
Its Holdings of U. S. Government Securities
In discussing various factors that affect reserves, it was often indicated that the Federal Reserve offsets undesired changes in reserves through open market operations, that is, by buying and selling U.S. government securities in the market. However, outright purchases and sales of securities by the Federal Reserve in the market occur infrequently, and typically are conducted when an increase or decrease in another factor is expected to persist for some time. Most market actions taken to implement changes in monetary policy or to offset changes in other factors are accomplished through the use of transactions that change reserves temporarily. In addition, there are off-market transactions the Federal Reserve sometimes uses to change its holdings of U.S. government securities and affect reserves. (Recall the example in illustrations 38 and 40.) The impact on reserves of various Federal Reserve transactions in U.S. government and federal agency securities is explained below. (See table for a summary.) Outright transactions. Ownership of securities is transferred permanently to the buyer in an outright transaction, and the funds used in the transaction are transferred permanently to the seller. As a result, an outright purchase of securities by the Federal Reserve from a dealer in the market adds reserves permanently while an outright sale of securities to a dealer drains reserves permanently. The Federal Reserve can achieve the same net effect on reserves through off-market transactions where it executes outright sell and purchase orders from customers internally with the System account. In contrast, there is no impact on reserves if the Federal Reserve fills customers' outright sell and purchase orders in the market. Temporary transactions. Repurchase agreements (RPs), and associated matched sale-purchase agreements (MSPs), transfer ownership of securities and use of funds temporarily. In an RP transaction, one party sells securities to another and agrees to buy them back on a specified future date. In an MSP transaction, one party buys securities from another and agrees to sell them back on a specified future date. In essence, then, and RP for one party in the transaction works like an MSP for the other party. When the Federal Reserve executes what is referred to as a "System RP," it acquires securities in the market from dealers who agree to buy them back on a specified future date 1 to 15 days later. Both the System's portfolio of securities and bank reserves are increased during the term of the RP, but decline again when the dealers repurchase the securities. Thus System RPs increase reserves only temporarily. Reserves are drained temorarily when the Fed executes what is known as a "System MSP." A System MSP works like a System RP, only in the opposite directions. In a system MSP, the Fed sells securities to dealers in the market and agrees to buy them back on a specified day. The System's holdings of securities and bank reserves are reduced during the term of the MSP, but both increase when the Federal Reserve buys back the securities. Impact on reserves of Federal Reserve transactions Federal Reserve Transactions Reserve Impact Outright purchase of Securities - From dealer in market Permanent increase - To fill customer sell orders Permanent increase (If customer buy orders filled in market) (No impact) Outright Sales of Securites - To dealer in market Permanent decrease - To fill customer buy orders internally Permanent decrease (If customer buy orders filled in market) (No impact) Repurchase Agreements (RPs) - With dealer in market in System RP Temporary increase Matched Sale-Purchase Agreements (MSPs) - With dealer in market in a system MSP Temporary decrease - To fill customer RP orders internally No impact* (If customer RP orders passed to market as customer related RPs) (Temporary increase*) Redemption of Maturing Securities - Replace total amount maturing No impact - Redeem part of amount maturing Permanent decrease - Buy more than amount maturing** Permanent increase** ___________________________________________________________________________ *Impact based on assumption that the amount of RP orders done internally is the same as on the prior day. **The Federal Reserve currently is prohibited by law from buying securities directly from the Treasury, except to replace maturing issues. The Federal Reserve also uses MSPs to fill foreign customers' RP orders internally with the System account. Considered in isolation, a Federal Reserve MSP transaction with customers would drain reserves temporarily. However, these transactions occur every day, with the total amount of RP orders being fairly stable from day to day. Thus, on any given day, the Fed both buys back securities from customers to fulfill the prior day's MSP, and sells them about the same amount of securities to satisfy that day's agreement. As a result, there generally is little or no impact on reserves when the Fed uses MSPs to fill customer RP orders internally with the System account. Sometimes, however, the Federal Reserve fills some of the RP orders internally and the rest in the market. The part that is passed on to the market is known as a "customer-related RP." The Fed ends up repurchasing more securities from customers to complete the prior day's MSP than it sells to them in that day's MSP. As a result, customer-related RPs add reserves temporarily. Maturing securities. As securities held by the Federal Reserve mature, they are exchanged for new securities. Usually the total amount maturing is replaced so that there is no impact on reserves since the Fed's total holdings remain the same. Occasionally, however, the Federal Reserve will exchange only part of the amount maturing. Treasury deposits decline as payment for the redeemed securities is made, and reserves fall as the Treasury replenishes its deposits at the Fed through TT&L calls. The reserve drain is permanent. If the Fed were to buy more than the amount of securities maturing directly from the Treasury, then reserves would increase permanently. However, the Federal Reserve currently is prohibited by law from buying securities directly from the Treasury, except to replace maturing issues. Miscellaneous Factors Affecting Bank Reserves The factors described below normally have negligible effects on bank reserves because changes in them either occur very slowly or tend to be balanced by concurrent changes in other factors. But at times they may require offsetting action. Treasury Currency Outstanding Treasury currency outstanding consists of coins, silver certificates and U.S. notes originally issued by the Treasury, and other currency originally issued by commercial banks and by Federal Reserve Banks before July 1929 but for which the Treasury has redemption responsibility. Short-run changes are small, and their effects on bank reserves are indirect. The amount of Treasury currency outstanding currently increases only through issuance of new coin. The Treasury ships new coin to the Federal Reserve Banks for credit to Treasury deposits there. These deposits will be drawn down again, however, as the Treasury makes expenditures. Checks issued against these deposits are paid out to the public. As individuals deposit these checks in banks, reserves increase. (See explanation on pages 18 and 19.) When any type of Treasury currency is retired, bank reserves decline. As banks turn in Treasury currency for redemption, they receive Federal Reserve notes or coin in exchange or a credit to their reserve accounts, leaving their total reserves (reserve balances and vault cash) initially unchanged. However, the Treasury's deposits in the Reserve Banks are charged when Treasury currency is retired. Transfers from TT&L balances in banks to the Reserve Banks replenish these deposits. Such transfers absorb reserves. Treasury Cash Holdings In addition to accounts in depository institutions and Federal Reserve Banks, the Treasury holds some currency in its own vaults. Changes in these holdings affect bank reserves just like changes in the Treasury's deposit account at the Reserve Banks. When Treasury holdings of currency increase, they do so at the expense of deposits in banks. As cash holdings of the Treasury decline, on the other hand, these funds move into bank deposits and increase bank reserves. Other Deposits in Reserve Banks Besides U.S. banks, the U.S. Treasury, and foreign central banks and governments, there are some international organizations and certain U.S. government agencies that keep funds on deposit in the Federal Reserve Banks. In general, balances are built up through transfers of deposits held at U.S. banks. Such transfers may take place either directly, where these customers also have deposits in U.S. banks, or indirectly by the deposit of funds acquired from others who do have accounts at U.S. banks. Such transfers into "other deposits" drain reserves. When these customers draw on their Federal Reserve balances (say, to purchase securities), these funds are paid to the public and deposited in U.S. banks, thus increasing bank reserves. Just like foreign customers, these "other" customers manage their balances at the Federal Reserve closely so that changes in their deposits tend to be small and have minimal net impact on reserves. Nonfloat-Related Adjustments Certain adjustments are incorporated into published data on reserve balances to reflect nonfloat-related corrections. Such a correction might be made, for example, if an individual bank had mistakenly reported fewer reservable deposits than actually existed and had held smaller reserve balances than necessary in some past period. To correct for this error, a nonfloat-related as-of adjustment will be applied to the bank's reserve position. This essentially results in the bank having to hold higher balances in its reserve account in the current and/or future periods than would be needed to satisfy reserve requirements in those periods. Nonfloat-related as-of adjustments affect the allocation of funds in bank reserve accounts but not the total amount in these accounts as reflected on Federal Reserve Bank and individual bank balance sheets. Published data on reserve balances, however, are adjusted to show only those reserve balances held to meet the current and/or future period reserve requirements. Other Federal Reserve Accounts Earlier sections of this booklet described the way in which bank reserves increase when the Federal Reserve purchases securities and decline when the Fed sells securities. The same results follow from any Federal Reserve expenditure or receipt. Every payment made by the Reserve Banks, in meeting expenses or acquiring any assets, affects deposits and bank reserves in the same way as does payment to a dealer for government securities. Similarly, Reserve Bank receipts of interest on loans and securities and increases in paid-in capital absorb reserves. The Reserve Multiplier - Why It Varies The deposit expansion and contraction associated with a given change in bank reserves, as illustrated earlier in this booklet, assumed a fixed reserve-to-deposit multiplier. That multiplier was determined by a uniform percentage reserve requirement specified for transaction accounts. Such an assumption is an oversimplification of the actual relationship between changes in reserves and changes in money, especially in the short-run. For a number of reasons, as discussed in this section, the quantity of reserves associated with a given quantity of transaction deposits is constantly changing. One slippage affecting the reserve multiplier is variation in the amount of excess reserves. In the real world, reserves are not always fully utilized. There are always some excess reserves in the banking system, reflecting frictions and lags as funds flow among thousands of individual banks. Excess reserves present a problem for monetary policy implementation only because the amount changes. To the extent that new reserves supplied are offset by rising excess reserves, actual money growth falls short of the theoretical maximum. Conversely, a reduction in excess reserves by the banking system has the same effect on monetary expansion as the injection of an equal amount of new reserves. Slippages also arise from reserve requirements being imposed on liabilities not included in money as well as differing reserve ratios being applied to transaction deposits according to the size of the bank. From 1980 through 1990, reserve requirements were imposed on certain non-transaction liabilities of all depository institutions, and before then on all deposits of member banks. The reserve multiplier was affected by flows of funds between institutions subject to differing reserve requirements as well as by shifts of funds between transaction deposits and other liabilities subject to reserve requirements. The extension of reserve requirements to all depository institutions in 1980 and the elimination of reserve requirements against non-personal time deposits and Eurocurrency liabilities in late 1990 reduced, but did not eliminate, this source of instability in the reserve multiplier. The deposit expansion potential of a given volume of reserves still is affected by shifts of transaction deposits between larger institutions and those either exempt from reserve requirements or whose transaction deposits are within the tranche subject to a 3 percent reserve requirement. In addition, the reserve multiplier is affected by conversions of deposits into currency or vice versa. This factor was important in the 1980s as the public's desired currency holdings relative to transaction deposits in money shifted considerably. Also affecting the multiplier are shifts between transaction deposits included in money and other transaction accounts that also are reservable but not included in money, such as demand deposits due to depository institutions, the U.S. government, and foreign banks and official institutions. In the aggregate, these non-money transaction deposits are relatively small in comparison to total transaction accounts, but can vary significantly from week to week. A net injection of reserves has widely different effects depending on how it is absorbed. Only a dollar-for-dollar increase in the money supply would result if the new reserves were paid out in currency to the public. With a uniform 10 percent reserve requirement, a $1 increase in reserves would support $10 of additional transaction accounts. An even larger amount would be supported under the graduated system where smaller institutions are subject to reserve requirements below 10 percent. But, $1 of new reserves also would support an additional $10 of certain reservable transaction accounts that are not counted as money. (See chart below.) Normally, an increase in reserves would be absorbed by some combination of these currency and transaction deposit changes.
All of these factors are to some extent predictable and are taken into account in decisions as to the amount of reserves that need to be supplied to achieve the desired rate of monetary expansion. They help explain why short-run fluctuations in bank reserves often are disproportionate to, and sometimes in the opposite direction from, changes in the deposit component of money. Money Creation and Reserve Management Another reason for short-run variation in the amount of reserves supplied is that credit expansion - and thus deposit creation - is variable, reflecting uneven timing of credit demands. Although bank loan policies normally take account of the general availability of funds, the size and timing of loans and investments made under those policies depend largely on customers' credit needs.
In the real world, a bank's lending is not normally constrained by the amount of excess reserves it has at any given moment. Rather, loans are made, or not made, depending on the bank's credit policies and its expectations about its ability to obtain the funds necessary to pay its customers' checks and maintain required reserves in a timely fashion. In fact, because Federal Reserve regulations in effect from 1968 through early 1984 specified that average required reserves for a given week should be based on average deposit levels two weeks earlier ("lagged" reserve accounting), deposit creation actually preceded the provision of supporting reserves. In early 1984, a more "contemporaneous" reserve accounting system was implemented in order to improve monetary control. In February 1984, banks shifted to maintaining average reserves over a two-week reserve maintenance period ending Wednesday against average transaction deposits held over the two-week computation period ending only two days earlier. Under this rule, actual transaction deposit expansion was expected to more closely approximate the process explained at the beginning of this booklet. However, some slippages still exist because of short-run uncertainties about the level of both reserves and transaction deposits near the close of reserve maintenance periods. Moreover, not all banks must maintain reserves according to the contemporaneous accounting system. Smaller institutions are either exempt completely or only have to maintain reserves quarterly against average deposits in one week of the prior quarterly period. On balance, however, variability in the reserve multiplier has been reduced by the extension of reserve requirements to all institutions in 1980, by the adoption of contemporaneous reserve accounting in 1984, and by the removal of reserve requirements against nontransaction deposits and liabilities in late 1990. As a result, short-term changes in total reserves and transaction deposits in money are more closely related now than they were before. (See charts on this page.) The lowering of the reserve requirement against transaction accounts above the 3 percent tranche in April 1992 also should contribute to stabilizing the multiplier, at least in theory. Ironically, these modifications contributing to a less variable relationship between changes in reserves and changes in transaction deposits occurred as the relationship between transactions money (M1) and the economy deteriorated. Because the M1 measure of money has become less useful as a guide for policy, somewhat greater attention has shifted to the broader measures M2 and M3. However, reserve multiplier relationships for the broader monetary measures are far more variable than that for M1. Although every bank must operate within the system where the total amount of reserves is controlled by the Federal Reserve, its response to policy action is indirect. The individual bank does not know today precisely what its reserve position will be at the time the proceeds of today's loans are paid out. Nor does it know when new reserves are being supplied to the banking system. Reserves are distributed among thousands of banks, and the individual banker cannot distinguish between inflows originating from additions to reserves through Federal reserve action and shifts of funds from other banks that occur in the normal course of business. To equate short-run reserve needs with available funds, therefore, many banks turn to the money market - borrowing funds to cover deficits or lending temporary surpluses. When the demand for reserves is strong relative to the supply, funds obtained from money market sources to cover deficits tend to become more expensive and harder to obtain, which, in turn, may induce banks to adopt more restrictive loan policies and thus slow the rate of deposit growth. Federal Reserve open market operations exert control over the creation of deposits mainly through their impact on the availability and cost of funds in the money market. When the total amount of reserves supplied to the banking system through open market operations falls short of the amount required, some banks are forced to borrow at the Federal Reserve discount window. Because such borrowing is restricted to short periods, the need to repay it tends to induce restraint on further deposit expansion by the borrowing bank. Conversely, when there are excess reserves in the banking system, individual banks find it easy and relatively inexpensive to acquire reserves, and expansion in loans, investments, and deposits is encouraged. Modern
Money Mechanics
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