IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/fip/fednci/y2009idecnv.15no.8.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Why are banks holding so many excess reserves?

Author

Listed:
  • Todd Keister
  • James J. McAndrews

Abstract

The buildup of reserves in the U.S. banking system during the financial crisis has fueled concerns that the Federal Reserve's policies may have failed to stimulate the flow of credit in the economy: banks, it appears, are amassing funds rather than lending them out. However, a careful examination of the balance sheet effects of central bank actions shows that the high level of reserves is simply a by-product of the Fed's new lending facilities and asset purchase programs. The total quantity of reserves in the banking system reflects the scale of the Fed's policy initiatives, but conveys no information about the initiatives' effects on bank lending or on the economy more broadly.

Suggested Citation

  • Todd Keister & James J. McAndrews, 2009. "Why are banks holding so many excess reserves?," Current Issues in Economics and Finance, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 15(Dec).
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fednci:y:2009:i:dec:n:v.15no.8
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/media/research/current_issues/ci15-8.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/media/research/current_issues/ci15-8.html
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Huberto M. Ennis & John A. Weinberg, 2007. "Interest on reserves and daylight credit," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, vol. 93(Spr), pages 111-142.
    2. Sumner Scott, 2009. "Comment on Brad Delong: Can We Generate Controlled Reflation in a Liquidity Trap?," The Economists' Voice, De Gruyter, vol. 6(4), pages 1-2, March.
    3. Dasgupta Swapan, 2009. "Comment on Luigi Zingales: Why not Consider Maximum Reserve Ratios?," The Economists' Voice, De Gruyter, vol. 6(4), pages 1-2, March.
    4. Huberto M. Ennis & Todd Keister, 2008. "Understanding monetary policy implementation," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, vol. 94(Sum), pages 235-263.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Andreas Hornstein, 2010. "Monetary policy with interest on reserves," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, vol. 96(2Q), pages 153-177.
    2. Bech, Morten & Keister, Todd, 2017. "Liquidity regulation and the implementation of monetary policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 64-77.
    3. Hogan, Thomas L., 2021. "Bank lending and interest on excess reserves: An empirical investigation," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    4. Todd Keister & Antoine Martin & James J. McAndrews, 2008. "Divorcing money from monetary policy," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 14(Sep), pages 41-56.
    5. Javier Bianchi & Saki Bigio, 2022. "Banks, Liquidity Management, and Monetary Policy," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 90(1), pages 391-454, January.
    6. Priyo, Asad Karim Khan, 2023. "Investigating Excess Reserve Accumulation and Credit Crunch in U.S. Commercial Banks Focusing on the Financial Crisis," MPRA Paper 117851, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Bouwman, Christa H. S., 2013. "Liquidity: How Banks Create It and How It Should Be Regulated," Working Papers 13-32, University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School, Weiss Center.
    8. Mr. Nils O Maehle, 2020. "Monetary Policy Implementation: Operational Issues for Countries with Evolving Monetary Policy Frameworks," IMF Working Papers 2020/026, International Monetary Fund.
    9. Silvia Bressan, 2018. "The impact of banks’ liquidity reserves on lending," Journal of Banking Regulation, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 19(4), pages 337-345, November.
    10. Sriya Anbil & Mark A. Carlson & Christopher Hanes & David C. Wheelock, 2020. "A New Daily Federal Funds Rate Series and History of the Federal Funds Market, 1928-1954," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2020-059, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    11. Eric Monnet & Miklos Vari, 2023. "A Dilemma between Liquidity Regulation and Monetary Policy: Some History and Theory," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 55(4), pages 915-944, June.
    12. Gara Afonso & Ricardo Lagos, 2015. "The Over‐the‐Counter Theory of the Fed Funds Market: A Primer," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 47(S2), pages 127-154, June.
    13. Morten L Bech & Cyril Monnet, 2013. "The Impact of Unconventional Monetary Policy on the Overnight Interbank Market," RBA Annual Conference Volume (Discontinued), in: Alexandra Heath & Matthew Lilley & Mark Manning (ed.),Liquidity and Funding Markets, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    14. Antoine Martin & James J. McAndrews & Ali Palida & David R. Skeie, 2013. "Federal Reserve tools for managing rates and reserves," Staff Reports 642, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    15. M. Vari, 2014. "Implementing monetary policy in a fragmented monetary union," Working papers 529, Banque de France.
    16. Bhattacharya, Joydeep & Haslag, Joseph H. & Martin, Antoine, 2009. "Why does overnight liquidity cost more than intraday liquidity?," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 1236-1246, June.
    17. Ennis, Huberto M., 2018. "A simple general equilibrium model of large excess reserves," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 50-65.
    18. Dutkowsky, Donald H. & VanHoose, David D., 2017. "Interest on reserves, regime shifts, and bank behavior," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 1-15.
    19. David Florian Hoyle & Chris Limnios & Carl E. Walsh, 2018. "Monetary policy operating procedures, lending frictions, and employment," Working Papers 118, Peruvian Economic Association.
    20. Jiho Lee, 2016. "Corridor System and Interest Rates: Volatility and Asymmetry," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 48(8), pages 1815-1838, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fip:fednci:y:2009:i:dec:n:v.15no.8. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Gabriella Bucciarelli (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbnyus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.