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The paper surveys the recent literature on the fiscal implications of central bank balance sheets, with a special focus on political economy issues. It then presents the results of simulations that describe the effects of different scenarios for the Federal Reserve's longer-run balance sheet on its earnings remittances to the U.S. Treasury and, more broadly, on the government's overall fiscal position. We find that reducing longer-run reserve balances from $2.3 trillion (roughly the current amount) to $1 trillion reduces the likelihood of posting a quarterly net loss in the future from 30 percent to under 5 percent. Further reducing longer-run reserve balances from $1 trillion to pre-crisis levels has little effect on the likelihood of net losses.

This paper examines the impact of large-scale asset purchases (LSAP) on U.S. asset prices (nominal and inflation-indexed bonds, stocks, and U.S. dollar spot exchange rates) using an event study with intraday data. The surprise component of LSAP announcements is identified from Financial Times articles. Estimation results show that the LSAP news has economically large and highly significant effects on asset prices, even after controlling for the surprise component of the Fed's conventional target rate decision and communication about its future path of policy. This study documents that the cumulative financial market impact of the Fed's LSAP program is equivalent to an unanticipated cut in the federal funds target rate that ranges between zero (for three-month yields) and 197 basis points (for ten-year yields), with the response of stock prices and foreign exchanges lying within this interval. These point estimates are, however, surrounded by considerable uncertainty. By looking at the cross-asset reactions, this work concludes that, for most U.S. asset prices, the effects of asset purchases are not statistically different from an unanticipated cut in the fed funds target rate. Finally, the response of U.K. asset prices (excepting FTSE 100 stocks) to the Bank of England's gilt purchases is quantitatively similar to the reaction of U.S. asset prices to the Fed's asset purchases.

This paper examines the impact of monetary policy decisions and central bank’s announcements on the full spectrum of the American and European yield curve over the sample period January 1999 to June 2006. We find that on monetary policy committee meeting days both the ECB and the Fed can move market rates using either the monetary policy or the news shock. However, the Fed is able to move the long-end of the term structure more effectively than the ECB. Moreover, in the period under examination the Fed has been more able to move European interest rates of all maturities than the ECB to move American rates.