IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ijc/ijcjou/y2015q1a8.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Large Excess Reserves in the United States: A View from the Cross-Section of Banks

Author

Listed:
  • Huberto M. Ennis

    (Research Department, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond)

  • Alexander L. Wolman

    (Research Department, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond)

Abstract

Bank reserves in the United States increased dramatically at the end of 2008. Subsequent asset purchase programs in 2009 and 2011 more than doubled the quantity of reserves outstanding. We study the cross-sectional distribution of reserves in that period, and the relationship between holdings of reserves and other components of banks’ balance sheets. We find that reserves were widely distributed, increasing the liquidity position of many banks which, at the same time, were far from facing tight capital constraints. Our findings have implications for assessing the importance of large quantities of excess reserves for monetary policy.

Suggested Citation

  • Huberto M. Ennis & Alexander L. Wolman, 2015. "Large Excess Reserves in the United States: A View from the Cross-Section of Banks," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 11(1), pages 251-289, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:ijc:ijcjou:y:2015:q:1:a:8
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.ijcb.org/journal/ijcb15q1a8.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.ijcb.org/journal/ijcb15q1a8.htm
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jose M. Berrospide & Rochelle M. Edge, 2010. "The effects of bank capital on lending: What do we know, and what does it mean?," CAMA Working Papers 2010-26, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    2. Chari, V V & Christiano, Lawrence J & Eichenbaum, Martin, 1995. "Inside Money, Outside Money, and Short-Term Interest Rates," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 27(4), pages 1354-1386, November.
    3. Anil K. Kashyap & Raghuram Rajan & Jeremy C. Stein, 2002. "Banks as Liquidity Providers: An Explanation for the Coexistence of Lending and Deposit‐taking," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(1), pages 33-73, February.
    4. Andrew Levin & John B. Taylor, 2013. "Falling Behind the Curve: A Positive Analysis of Stop-Start Monetary Policies and the Great Inflation," NBER Chapters, in: The Great Inflation: The Rebirth of Modern Central Banking, pages 217-244, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Carlson, Mark & Shan, Hui & Warusawitharana, Missaka, 2013. "Capital ratios and bank lending: A matched bank approach," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 663-687.
    6. Adam Ashcraft & James Mcandrews & David Skeie, 2011. "Precautionary Reserves and the Interbank Market," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 43(s2), pages 311-348, October.
    7. Hubert P. Janicki & Edward Simpson Prescott, 2006. "Changes in the size distribution of U.S. banks: 1960-2005," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, vol. 92(Fall), pages 291-316.
    8. Ivashina, Victoria & Scharfstein, David, 2010. "Bank lending during the financial crisis of 2008," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(3), pages 319-338, September.
    9. Antoine Martin & James McAndrews & David Skeie, 2016. "Bank Lending in Times of Large Bank Reserves," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 12(4), pages 193-222, December.
    10. Bech, Morten L. & Klee, Elizabeth, 2011. "The mechanics of a graceful exit: Interest on reserves and segmentation in the federal funds market," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(5), pages 415-431.
    11. Chang, Su-Hsin & Contessi, Silvio & Francis, Johanna L., 2014. "Understanding the accumulation of bank and thrift reserves during the U.S. financial crisis," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 78-106.
    12. Lawrence L Kreicher & Robert N McCauley & Patrick McGuire, 2013. "The 2011 FDIC assessment on banks managed liabilities: interest rate and balance-sheet responses," BIS Working Papers 413, Bank for International Settlements.
    13. Jose M. Berrospide & Rochelle M. Edge, 2010. "The Effects of Bank Capital on Lending: What Do We Know, and What Does It Mean?," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 6(34), pages 1-50, December.
    14. Jose M. Berrospide & Rochelle M. Edge, 2010. "The effects of bank capital on lending: what do we know, and what does it mean?," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2010-44, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    15. Efraim Benmelech, 2012. "An Empirical Analysis of the Fed's Term Auction Facility," NBER Working Papers 18304, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ricardo Reis, 2016. "Funding Quantitative Easing to Target Inflation," Discussion Papers 1626, Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM).
    2. Chetan Dave & Scott J. Dressler & Lei Zhang, 2020. "Bank Lending, Monetary Policy Transmission, and Interest on Excess Reserves: a FAVAR Analysis," Villanova School of Business Department of Economics and Statistics Working Paper Series 44, Villanova School of Business Department of Economics and Statistics.
    3. Jens H. E. Christensen & Signe Krogstrup, 2022. "A Portfolio Model of Quantitative Easing," Quarterly Journal of Finance (QJF), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 12(04), pages 1-39, December.
    4. Ellen Ryan & Karl Whelan, 2023. "A Model of QE, Reserve Demand, and the Money Multiplier," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 55(2-3), pages 407-439, March.
    5. Albertazzi, Ugo & Barbiero, Francesca & Marqués-Ibáñez, David & Popov, Alexander & Rodriguez d’Acri, Costanza & Vlassopoulos, Thomas, 2020. "Monetary policy and bank stability: the analytical toolbox reviewed," Working Paper Series 2377, European Central Bank.
    6. Kuang, Chun & Yang, Jiawen & Zhu, Wenyu, 2024. "Reserve holding and bank lending," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    7. Antoine Martin & James McAndrews & David Skeie, 2016. "Bank Lending in Times of Large Bank Reserves," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 12(4), pages 193-222, December.
    8. Bratsiotis, George, 2018. "Credit Risk, Excess Reserves and Monetary Policy: The Deposits Channel," EconStor Preprints 172770, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, revised 2018.
    9. Skander Van den Heuvel, 2019. "The Welfare Effects of Bank Liquidity and Capital Requirements," 2019 Meeting Papers 325, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    10. Demiralp, Selva & Eisenschmidt, Jens & Vlassopoulos, Thomas, 2021. "Negative interest rates, excess liquidity and retail deposits: Banks’ reaction to unconventional monetary policy in the euro area," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    11. Pavon-Prado, David, 2022. "The cost of excess reserves and inflation in the United States during the last century," MPRA Paper 112797, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Jens H E Christensen & Signe Krogstrup, 2019. "Transmission of Quantitative Easing: The Role of Central Bank Reserves," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(617), pages 249-272.
    13. Hoffmann, Peter & Sigaux, Jean-David, 2020. "Determinants of excess reserve holdings," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 195(C).
    14. Stephen Matteo Miller & Blake Hoarty, 2021. "On regulation and excess reserves: The case of Basel III," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 44(2), pages 215-247, June.
    15. Felix P. Ackon & Huberto M. Ennis, 2017. "The Fed's Discount Window: An Overview of Recent Data," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, issue Q1-Q4, pages 37-79.
    16. George J. Bratsiotis, 2018. "Credit Risk, Excess Reserves and Monetary Policy: The Deposits," Centre for Growth and Business Cycle Research Discussion Paper Series 236, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    17. Reis, Ricardo, 2016. "Funding quantitative easing to target inflation," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 67883, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    18. John Kandrac & Bernd Schlusche, 2017. "Quantitative Easing and Bank Risk Taking: Evidence from Lending," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2017-125, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    19. Todd Keister & Antoine Martin & James J. McAndrews, 2015. "Floor systems and the Friedman rule: the fiscal arithmetic of open market operations," Staff Reports 754, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    20. Elizabeth C. Klee & Zeynep Senyuz & Emre Yoldas, 2016. "Effects of Changing Monetary and Regulatory Policy on Overnight Money Markets," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2016-084, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    21. Miller, Steph & Hoarty, Blake, 2020. "On Regulation and Excess Reserves: The Case of Basel III," Working Papers 10243, George Mason University, Mercatus Center.
    22. Paul D. Mueller & Joshua Wojnilower, 2016. "The Federal Reserve's Floor System: Immediate Gain for Remote Pain?," Journal of Private Enterprise, The Association of Private Enterprise Education, vol. 31(Summer 20), pages 15-40.
    23. Hogan, Thomas L., 2021. "Bank lending and interest on excess reserves: An empirical investigation," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    24. John Kandrac & Bernd Schlusche, 2021. "Quantitative Easing and Bank Risk Taking: Evidence from Lending," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 53(4), pages 635-676, June.
    25. J. Christina Wang, 2017. "Banks' search for yield in the low interest rate environment: a tale of regulatory adaptation," Working Papers 17-3, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.

    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. Košak, Marko & Li, Shaofang & Lončarski, Igor & Marinč, Matej, 2015. "Quality of bank capital and bank lending behavior during the global financial crisis," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 168-183.
    2. Retselisitsoe I. Thamae & Nicholas M. Odhiambo, 2022. "The impact of bank regulation on bank lending: a review of international literature," Journal of Banking Regulation, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 23(4), pages 405-418, December.
    3. Rustom M. Irani & Ralf R. Meisenzahl, 2015. "Loan Sales and Bank Liquidity Risk Management: Evidence from a U.S. Credit Register," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2015-1, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    4. Makoto Nirei & Vladyslav Sushko & Julián Caballero, 2016. "Bank Capital Shock Propagation via Syndicated Interconnectedness," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 47(1), pages 67-96, January.
    5. Zheng, Yi, 2020. "Does bank opacity affect lending?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    6. repec:fip:fedgfe:2014-115 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Ben Naceur, S. & Marton, Katherin & Roulet, Caroline, 2018. "Basel III and bank-lending: Evidence from the United States and Europe," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 1-27.
    8. Huberto M. Ennis & Alexander L. Wolman, 2012. "Large excess reserves in the U.S.: a view from the cross-section of banks," Working Paper 12-05, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
    9. Kim, Dohan & Sohn, Wook, 2017. "The effect of bank capital on lending: Does liquidity matter?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 95-107.
    10. Paul Pelzl & María Teresa Valderrama, 2019. "Capital regulations and the management of credit commitments during crisis times," DNB Working Papers 661, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department.
    11. Simona Malovaná & Dominika Ehrenbergerová, 2022. "The effect of higher capital requirements on bank lending: the capital surplus matters," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 49(3), pages 793-832, August.
    12. Bakkar, Yassine & De Jonghe, Olivier & Tarazi, Amine, 2023. "Does banks’ systemic importance affect their capital structure and balance sheet adjustment processes?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    13. Kanga, Désiré & Murinde, Victor & Soumaré, Issouf, 2020. "Capital, risk and profitability of WAEMU banks: Does bank ownership matter?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    14. Berger, Allen N. & Molyneux, Phil & Wilson, John O.S., 2020. "Banks and the real economy: An assessment of the research," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    15. Berger, Allen N. & Sedunov, John, 2017. "Bank liquidity creation and real economic output," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 1-19.
    16. Malgorzata Olszak & Mateusz Pipien & Sylwia Roszkowska, 2016. "The Impact Of Capital Ratio On Lending Of Eu Banks – The Role Of Bank Specialization And Capitalization," Equilibrium. Quarterly Journal of Economics and Economic Policy, Institute of Economic Research, vol. 11(1), pages 43-59, March.
    17. Paul-Olivier Klein & Rima Turk-Ariss, 2022. "Bank capital and economic activity," Post-Print hal-03955630, HAL.
    18. Tölö, Eero & Virén, Matti, 2021. "How much do non-performing loans hinder loan growth in Europe?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    19. Olszak, Małgorzata & Roszkowska, Sylwia & Kowalska, Iwona, 2018. "Macroprudential policy instruments and procyclicality of loan-loss provisions – Cross-country evidence," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 228-257.
    20. Behn, Markus & Daminato, Claudio & Salleo, Carmelo, 2019. "A dynamic model of bank behaviour under multiple regulatory constraints," Working Paper Series 2233, European Central Bank.
    21. Buch, Claudia M. & Eickmeier, Sandra & Prieto, Esteban, 2014. "In search for yield? Survey-based evidence on bank risk taking," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 12-30.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
    • E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:ijc:ijcjou:y:2015:q:1:a: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: Bank for International Settlements (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.ijcb.org/ .

    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.