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From bazooka to backstop: the political economy of standing swap facilities

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  • Mathis L Richtmann
  • Lea Steininger

Abstract

The permanent international lender of last resort consists of a swap line network between six major central banks (C6), centring around the US Federal Reserve. Arguably, this network is a solution to a long-debated problem as it provides public emergency liquidity provision to the world’s largest financial market, the Eurodollar market. Drawing on exclusive interviews with monetary technocrats as well as a textual analysis of Federal Open Market Committee meeting transcripts over the course of 14 years, we reconstruct how this facility came into being. Building on Kalyanpur and Newman (2017) and Braun (2015), we develop an interpretive framework of bricolage to contextualise its formation: in times of crisis, central bankers rely on retrospection, experimentation and creative re-deployment to develop their tools. In non-crisis times, however, the tools that prevail are those that offer what we call ‘bureaucratic familiarity’: the C6 swap line network became a permanent feature of international finance because technocrats had got used to it.

Suggested Citation

  • Mathis L Richtmann & Lea Steininger, 2023. "From bazooka to backstop: the political economy of standing swap facilities," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 47(4), pages 681-702.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:cambje:v:47:y:2023:i:4:p:681-702.
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/cje/bead027
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    Cited by:

    1. Steininger, Lea & Hesse, Casimir, 2024. "Buying into new ideas: The ECB’s evolving justification of unlimited liquidity," Department of Economics Working Paper Series 357, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business.
    2. Lea Steininger & Casimir Hesse, 2024. "Buying into new ideas: The ECB’s evolving justification of unlimited liquidity," Department of Economics Working Papers wuwp357, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Department of Economics.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Standing swap facilities; Lender of last resort; International monetary policy; Central bank cooperation; Monetary technocrats;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy
    • E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies
    • F5 - International Economics - - International Relations, National Security, and International Political Economy

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