IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/uma/periwp/wp221.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Troubling Economics and Politics of Paying Interest on Bank Reserves: A Critique of the Federal Reserve’s Exit Strategy

Author

Listed:
  • Thomas I. Palley

Abstract

The Federal Reserve has recently activated its newly acquired powers to pay interest on reserves of depository institutions. The Fed maintains its new policy increases economic efficiency and intends it to play a lead role in the exit from quantitative easing. This paper argues it is a bad policy that (1) has a deflationary bias; (2) is costly to taxpayers and that cost will increase as normal conditions return; and (3) establishes institutional lock-in that obstructs desirable changes to regulatory policy. The paper recommends repealing the Fed’s power to pay interest on bank reserves. Second, the Fed should repeal regulation Q that prohibits payment of interest on demand deposits. Third, the Fed should immediately implement an alternative system of asset based reserve requirements (liquidity ratios) that will improve monetary control and can help exit quantitative easing at no cost to the public purse. Now is the optimal time for this change. Lastly, the paper argues the new policy of paying interest on reserves reveals the troubling political economy governing the actions of the Federal Reserve and policy recommendations of the economics profession.

Suggested Citation

  • Thomas I. Palley, 2010. "The Troubling Economics and Politics of Paying Interest on Bank Reserves: A Critique of the Federal Reserve’s Exit Strategy," Working Papers wp221, Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
  • Handle: RePEc:uma:periwp:wp221
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://per.umass.edu/fileadmin/pdf/working_papers/working_papers_201-250/WP221.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Olivier Blanchard & Giovanni Dell'Ariccia & Paolo Mauro, 2010. "Rethinking Macroeconomic Policy," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 42(s1), pages 199-215, September.
    2. Thomas Palley, 2007. "Asset-based Reserve Requirements: A Response," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(4), pages 575-578.
    3. Thomas Mayer, 1966. "Interest Payments On Required Reserve Balances," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 21(1), pages 116-118, March.
    4. Thomas Palley, 2004. "Asset-based reserve requirements: reasserting domestic monetary control in an era of financial innovation and instability," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(1), pages 43-58.
    5. Thomas Palley, 2003. "Asset Price Bubbles and the Case for Asset-Based Reserve Requirements," Challenge, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(3), pages 53-72.
    6. 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.
    7. Olivier Blanchard & Giovanni Dell'Ariccia & Paolo Mauro, 2010. "Rethinking Macroeconomic Policy," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 42(s1), pages 199-215, September.
    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. Thomas Palley, 2010. "The Politics of Paying Interest on Bank Reserves," Challenge, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(3), pages 49-65.
    2. Thomas I. Palley, 2015. "Monetary Policy at the Zero Lower Bound and After: A Reassessment of Quantitative Easing and Critique of the Federal Reserve's Proposed Exit Strategy," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 66(1), pages 1-27, February.
    3. Daniel Detzer, 2012. "New instruments for banking regulation and monetary policy after the crisis," European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies: Intervention, Edward Elgar Publishing, vol. 9(2), pages 233-254.
    4. Dongkoo Chang & Vincent Choon-Seng Lim & Eufrocinio M. Bernabe, Jr., 2014. "Alternative Monetary Policy Frameworks for Price and Financial Stability," Working Papers wp06, South East Asian Central Banks (SEACEN) Research and Training Centre.
    5. Thomas I. Palley, 2008. "Asset Price Bubbles and Monetary Policy: Why Central Banks Have Been Wrong and What Should Be Done," IMK Working Paper 05-2008, IMK at the Hans Boeckler Foundation, Macroeconomic Policy Institute.
    6. Leonardo Villar-Gómez & Javier Gómez & Andrés Murcia Pabón & Wilmar Cabrera & Hernando Vargas, 2023. "The monetary and macroprudential policy framework in Colombia in the last 30 years: lessons learnt and challenges for the future," BIS Papers chapters, in: Bank for International Settlements (ed.), Central banking in the Americas: Lessons from two decades, volume 127, pages 87-112, Bank for International Settlements.
    7. Tobias Cwik, 2012. "Fiscal consolidation using the example of Germany," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2012-80, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    8. Stijn Claessens & M. Ayhan Kose, 2013. "Financial Crises: Explanations, Types and Implications," CAMA Working Papers 2013-06, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    9. Zhang, Yanbing & Hua, Xiuping & Zhao, Liang, 2011. "Monetary policy and housing prices : a case study of Chinese experience in 1999-2010," BOFIT Discussion Papers 17/2011, Bank of Finland, Institute for Economies in Transition.
    10. Kobayashi, Teruyoshi & Muto, Ichiro, 2013. "A Note On Expectational Stability Under Nonzero Trend Inflation," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 17(3), pages 681-693, April.
    11. Pierpaolo Benigno & Luca Antonio Ricci, 2011. "The Inflation-Output Trade-Off with Downward Wage Rigidities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(4), pages 1436-1466, June.
    12. Gagnon, Marie-Hélène & Gimet, Céline, 2013. "The impacts of standard monetary and budgetary policies on liquidity and financial markets: International evidence from the credit freeze crisis," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(11), pages 4599-4614.
    13. Eckhard Hein, 2016. "Secular stagnation or stagnation policy? Steindl after Summers," PSL Quarterly Review, Economia civile, vol. 69(276), pages 3-47.
    14. Francesco Saraceno, 2015. "Challenges for the ECB in Times of Deflation," Working Papers hal-03470271, HAL.
    15. Piotr Ciżkowicz & Andrzej Rzońca & Andrzej Torój, 2019. "In Search of an Appropriate Lower Bound. The Zero Lower Bound vs. the Positive Lower Bound under Discretion and Commitment," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 20(4), pages 1028-1053, November.
    16. Dan Costin NIŢESCU & Florin Alexandru DUNĂ & Adriana Daniela CIUREL, 2020. "Banking sector and bank liquidity – key actors within financial crises?," Theoretical and Applied Economics, Asociatia Generala a Economistilor din Romania / Editura Economica, vol. 0(2(623), S), pages 147-168, Summer.
    17. Şen, Hüseyin & Kaya, Ayşe, 2021. "Output-volatility reducing effects of automatic stabilizers: Policy implications for EMU member states," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 43(6), pages 1388-1414.
    18. Khan, Muhammad, 2016. "Evidence on the functional form of inflation and output growth variability relationship in European economies," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 1-11.
    19. repec:dau:papers:123456789/12010 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Saglio, Sophie & López-Villavicencio, Antonia, 2012. "Introducing price-setting behaviour in the Phillips Curve: the role of nonlinearities," MPRA Paper 46646, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    21. Vladimir Filipovski & Taki Fiti & Borce Trenovski, 2016. "Efficiency of the Fiscal Policy and the Fiscal Multipliers – The Case of the Republic of Macedonia," Economic Studies journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 1, pages 3-23.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Interest on reserves; asset based reserve requirements; liquidity ratios;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E40 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - General
    • E42 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Monetary Sytsems; Standards; Regimes; Government and the Monetary System
    • E43 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Interest Rates: Determination, Term Structure, and Effects

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:uma:periwp:wp221. 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: Judy Fogg The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Judy Fogg to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/permaus.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.