IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/prg/jnlpep/v2010y2010i3id372p195-217.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Cardiograph of the Dollar's Quality: Qualitative Easing and the Federal Reserve Balance Sheet During the Subprime Crisis

Author

Listed:
  • Philipp Bagus
  • Markus H. Schiml

Abstract

In this article we argue that the balance sheet of a central bank contains valuable information for the quality of a currency. As an illustration we analyze the balance sheet of the Federal Reserve System (FED) during the subprime crisis between June 2007 and December 2008. Until September 2008 the balance sheet of the FED did not expand strongly. However, the structure of the FED assets varied pronouncedly. Starting in September 2008 the balance sheet expanded dramatically. The calculation of certain balance sheet ratios supports the assessment of an important decrease of the quality of the currency. Our analysis shows that the analysis of central bank balance sheet policies should not rely solely on quantitative issues but rather include qualitative issues.

Suggested Citation

  • Philipp Bagus & Markus H. Schiml, 2010. "A Cardiograph of the Dollar's Quality: Qualitative Easing and the Federal Reserve Balance Sheet During the Subprime Crisis," Prague Economic Papers, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2010(3), pages 195-217.
    • Handle: RePEc:prg:jnlpep:v:2010:y:2010:i:3:id:372:p:195-217
    DOI: 10.18267/j.pep.372
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://pep.vse.cz/doi/10.18267/j.pep.372.html
    Download Restriction: free of charge
    File URL: http://pep.vse.cz/doi/10.18267/j.pep.372.pdf
    Download Restriction: free of charge
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.18267/j.pep.372?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stephen G. Cecchetti, 2009. "Crisis and Responses: The Federal Reserve in the Early Stages of the Financial Crisis," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 23(1), pages 51-75, Winter.
    2. Buiter, Willem, 2008. "Can Central Banks Go Broke?," CEPR Discussion Papers 6827, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Sarno,Lucio & Taylor,Mark P., 2003. "The Economics of Exchange Rates," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521485845, January.
    4. Philipp Bagus & Markus H. Schiml, 2009. "New Modes Of Monetary Policy: Qualitative Easing By The Fed," Economic Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(2), pages 46-49, June.
    5. Roland N. McKean, 1949. "Liquidity and a National Balance Sheet," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 57(6), pages 506-506.
    6. Ehrmann, Michael & Fratzscher, Marcel, 2005. "Exchange rates and fundamentals: new evidence from real-time data," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 317-341, March.
    7. MacDonald, Ronald, 1999. "Exchange Rate Behaviour: Are Fundamentals Important?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 109(459), pages 673-691, November.
    8. Frankel, Jeffrey A. & Rose, Andrew K., 1996. "Currency crashes in emerging markets: An empirical treatment," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(3-4), pages 351-366, November.
    9. Mishkin, Frederic S., 1978. "The Household Balance Sheet and the Great Depression," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 38(4), pages 918-937, December.
    10. Cunningham, Thomas J, 1992. "Some Real Evidence on the Real Bills Doctrine versus the Quantity Theory," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 30(2), pages 371-383, April.
    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. Philipp Bagus, 2011. "The Eurosystem: Costs and Tragedies," Chapters, in: David Howden (ed.), Institutions in Crisis, chapter 7, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. Jesús Huerta de Soto & Antonio Sánchez-Bayón & Philipp Bagus, 2021. "Principles of Monetary & Financial Sustainability and Wellbeing in a Post-COVID-19 World: The Crisis and Its Management," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(9), pages 1-11, April.
    3. Miguel Ángel Echarte Fernández & Sergio Luis Náñez Alonso & Ricardo Reier Forradellas & Javier Jorge-Vázquez, 2022. "From the Great Recession to the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Risk of Expansionary Monetary Policies," Risks, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-17, January.
    4. Miguel Ángel Echarte Fernández & Sergio Luis Náñez Alonso & Javier Jorge-Vázquez & Ricardo Francisco Reier Forradellas, 2021. "Central Banks’ Monetary Policy in the Face of the COVID-19 Economic Crisis: Monetary Stimulus and the Emergence of CBDCs," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(8), pages 1-18, April.

    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. Bagus, Philipp & Howden, David, 2009. "Qualitative Easing in Support of a Tumbling Financial System: A Recent Look at the Eurosystem´s Recent Balance Sheet Policies," MPRA Paper 79587, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Bagus, Philipp & Howden, David, 2009. "The Federal Reserve System and Eurosystem's Balance Sheet Policies During the Financial Crisis: A Comparative Analysis," MPRA Paper 79588, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Bagus, Philipp & Howden, David, 2016. "Central Bank Balance Sheet Analysis," MPRA Paper 79801, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Philipp Bagus & David Howden, 2009. "Qualitative Easing In Support Of A Tumbling Financial System: A Look At The Eurosystem'S Recent Balance Sheet Policies," Economic Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(4), pages 60-65, December.
    5. Barbara Rossi, 2013. "Exchange Rate Predictability," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 51(4), pages 1063-1119, December.
    6. Evans, Kevin P. & Speight, Alan E.H., 2010. "Dynamic news effects in high frequency Euro exchange rates," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 238-258, July.
    7. Zhang, Xun & He, Zongyue & Zhu, Jiali & Li, Jing, 2018. "Quantity of finance and financial crisis: A non-monotonic investigation☆," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 129-139.
    8. Bernhard O. Ishioro, 2014. "The Dynamics Of Exchange Rate Expectations Formation: The Nigerian Perspective," Economic Thought and Practice, Department of Economics and Business, University of Dubrovnik, vol. 23(2), pages 431-460, december.
    9. Frommel, Michael & MacDonald, Ronald & Menkhoff, Lukas, 2005. "Markov switching regimes in a monetary exchange rate model," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 485-502, May.
    10. M. Ali Kemal & Rana Murad Haider, 2004. "Exchange Rate Behaviour after Recent Float: The Experience of Pakistan," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 43(4), pages 829-852.
    11. Frommel, Michael & MacDonald, Ronald & Menkhoff, Lukas, 2005. "Do fundamentals matter for the D-Mark/Euro-Dollar? A regime switching approach," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 15(3), pages 321-335, February.
    12. Leonardo Hernández & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel, 2002. "Banking, Financial Integration, and International Crises: An Overview," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Leonardo Hernández & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel & Norman Loayza (Series Editor) & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel (Se (ed.),Banking, Financial Integration, and International Crises, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 1, pages 001-030, Central Bank of Chile.
    13. Jaehun Chung & Yongmiao Hong, 2007. "Model-free evaluation of directional predictability in foreign exchange markets," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(5), pages 855-889.
    14. Dominguez, Kathryn M.E. & Panthaki, Freyan, 2006. "What defines `news' in foreign exchange markets?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 168-198, February.
    15. Stillwagon, Josh R., 2016. "Non-linear exchange rate relationships: An automated model selection approach with indicator saturation," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 84-109.
    16. A J Makin, 2005. "A Monetary Model of Exchange Rate and Balance of Payments Adjustment," Economic Issues Journal Articles, Economic Issues, vol. 10(1), pages 25-36, March.
    17. Christofides, Charis & Eicher, Theo S. & Papageorgiou, Chris, 2016. "Did established Early Warning Signals predict the 2008 crises?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 103-114.
    18. Frömmel, Michael & Mende, Alexander & Menkhoff, Lukas, 2008. "Order flows, news, and exchange rate volatility," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(6), pages 994-1012, October.
    19. Bagus, Philipp & Howden, David, 2014. "Central Bank Insolvency: Causes, Effects and Remedies," MPRA Paper 79605, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Rodríguez López, Mª A., 2002. "Crisis de credibilidad de la peseta en las bandas del SME. Una aplicación del Modelo de Markov con saltos de régimen," Estudios de Economia Aplicada, Estudios de Economia Aplicada, vol. 20, pages 599-626, Diciembre.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    central banks´ balance sheet; quality of money; qualitative easing; balance sheet analysis; subprime crisis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • 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
    • E59 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Other
    • M40 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Accounting - - - General

    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:prg:jnlpep:v:2010:y:2010:i:3:id:372:p:195-217. 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: Stanislav Vojir (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/uevsecz.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.