scholarly journals Amplification Mechanisms in Liquidity Crises

2010 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arvind Krishnamurthy
Keyword(s):  
Central Bank ◽  
Asset Prices ◽  
Capital Requirements ◽  
Knightian Uncertainty ◽  
Balance Sheets ◽  
Financial Innovations ◽  
Liquidity Provision ◽  
Ex Ante ◽  
Liquidity Crises ◽  
Negative Shock

I describe two amplifications mechanisms that operate during crises and discuss the benefits of policy given each mechanism. The first mechanism involves asset prices and balance sheets. A negative shock to agents' balance sheets causes them to liquidate assets, lowering prices, further deteriorating balance sheets and amplifying the shock. The second mechanism involves investors' Knightian uncertainty. Unusual shocks to untested financial innovations increase agents' uncertainty about their investments, causing them to disengage from markets and amplifying the crisis. Liquidity provision by the central bank alleviates the crisis in both mechanisms. Ex ante policies such as liquidity/capital requirements may also be beneficial. (JEL E32, E44, G01, G21, G32)

scholarly journals Coordinating expectations through central bank projections

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fatemeh Mokhtarzadeh ◽  
Luba Petersen
Keyword(s):  
Central Bank ◽  
Rational Expectations ◽  
Inflation Targeting ◽  
Aggregate Stability ◽  
Central Banks ◽  
Output Gap ◽  
Forecast Errors ◽  
Market Participants ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Ex Ante

AbstractCentral banks are increasingly communicating their economic outlook in an effort to manage the public and financial market participants’ expectations. We provide original causal evidence that the information communicated and the assumptions underlying a central bank’s projection can matter for expectation formation and aggregate stability. Using a between-subject design, we systematically vary the central bank’s projected forecasts in an experimental macroeconomy where subjects are incentivized to forecast the output gap and inflation. Without projections, subjects exhibit a wide range of heuristics, with the modal heuristic involving a significant backward-looking component. Ex-Ante Rational dual projections of the output gap and inflation significantly reduce the number of subjects’ using backward-looking heuristics and nudge expectations in the direction of the rational expectations equilibrium. Ex-Ante Rational interest rate projections are cognitively challenging to employ and have limited effects on the distribution of heuristics. Adaptive dual projections generate unintended inflation volatility by inducing boundedly-rational forecasters to employ the projection and model-consistent forecasters to utilize the projection as a proxy for aggregate expectations. All projections reduce output gap disagreement but increase inflation disagreement. Central bank credibility is significantly diminished when the central bank makes larger forecast errors when communicating a relatively more complex projection. Our findings suggest that inflation-targeting central banks should strategically ignore agents’ irrationalities when constructing their projections and communicate easy-to-process information.

scholarly journals Transmission Channels of Central Bank Asset Purchases in the Irish Economy

Economies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 98
Author(s):  
Cawley ◽  
Finnegan
Keyword(s):  
Central Bank ◽  
Sovereign Debt ◽  
Descriptive Analysis ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
Capital Requirements ◽  
Primary Objective ◽  
Quantitative Descriptive Analysis ◽  
Portfolio Rebalancing ◽  
Transmission Channels ◽  
Quantitative Descriptive

The European Central Bank (ECB) engaged in an expanded asset purchase programme (APP) from 2014 to 2018 to help achieve their primary objective of price stability. Total assets purchased over this period was over €2.5 trillion and new net purchases ended in December 2018. This paper identifies whether the ECB’s APP in Ireland operated through the portfolio rebalancing channel, the signalling channel or the lending channel. It presents a quantitative descriptive analysis of some key Irish data sets in the 2014–2018 period and uses time-series visualisation and trend analysis to identify trends and correlations. There are a number of preliminary findings. First, much downward pressure on sovereign debt yields and spreads had occurred before the APP began due to previous accommodative monetary policy and the signalling channel. Second, the corporate-sector purchase programme (CSPP) did impact on targeted bonds and may have had spill overs to non-targeted bonds. Third, the APP did not lead to much increased lending to the SME sector. Fourth, while households did engage in traditional portfolio rebalancing, Irish banks did not and were perhaps more motivated to meet their capital requirements and manage their level of reserves. This is a first step towards understanding the transmission channels of ECB policy in Ireland and more work needs to be done to detangle the transmission of the most recent APP from other factors and consider these findings in the context of theoretical models. Such work is important to help inform policy makers on enhancing the transmission mechanism to the Irish economy of the recently launched new ECB asset purchase programme from November 2019.

Unconventional Monetary Policies - Recent Experiences and Prospects - Background Paper

Policy Papers ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 (29) ◽  
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
Central Bank ◽  
Emerging Market ◽  
Spillover Effects ◽  
The United States ◽  
Background Information ◽  
Bond Yields ◽  
Monetary Policies ◽  
Balance Sheets ◽  
One Step ◽  
Bank Balance Sheets

This paper provides background information to the main Board paper, “The Role and Limits of Unconventional Monetary Policy.” This paper is divided in five distinct sections, each focused on a different topic covered in the main paper, though most relate to bond purchase programs. As a result, this paper centers on the experience of the United States Federal Reserve (Fed), the Bank of England (BOE) and the Bank of Japan (BOJ), mostly leaving the European Central Bank (ECB) aside given its focus on restoring the functioning of financial markets and intermediation. Section A explores whether bond purchase programs were effective at decreasing bond yields and, if so, through which channels. Section B goes one step further in evaluating whether bond purchase programs had—or can be expected to have—significant effects on real growth and inflation. Section C studies the spillover effects of bond purchases on both advanced and emerging market economies, using very similar methods as introduced in the first section. Section D breaks from the immediate focus on bond purchases to discuss how inflation might decrease the debt burden in advanced economies, in light of possible pressures that could fall (or be perceived to fall) on central banks. Finally, Section E discusses the possible risks of exiting given the very large central bank balance sheets.

Even gradual quantitative tightening raises GDP risks

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Euro Area ◽  
Commercial Banks ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Sales Tax ◽  
Quantitative Easing ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Balance Sheets ◽  
Liquidity Provision ◽  
The Us ◽  
Repurchase Agreements

Subject Quantitative easing and GDP. Significance The US Federal Reserve (Fed), Bank of Japan (BoJ) and ECB have all conducted quantitative easing (QE) programmes since 2008, purchasing assets from commercial banks on a large scale and without predefined repurchase agreements. These purchases have swollen the balance sheets of the three largest central banks and provided commercial banks with large liquidity buffers. Impacts The pace of the Fed withdrawing liquidity may slow; if US-China conflict worsens or another shock occurs, the Fed may consider reversing. In the euro-area, there are no new liquidity provisions, at a time when German GDP is weakening and Brexit threatens EU growth. New liquidity-provision plans may be hard for the euro-area to agree; if this is off the table, so are liquidity-withdrawing measures. The BoJ may stop scaling back its bond and ETF holdings if markets suffer; the upcoming sales tax rise will also hit spending.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document