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Die Notenbanken haben weltweit mit einer Ausweitung ihrer Bilanzen auf das Scheitern der Kreditwirtschaft in der Finanz- und Schuldenkrise reagiert. Allerdings bleibt offen, wie sie in ein tragbares Regime der traditionellen Geld- und Kreditabsicherungsbeziehungen zurückgelangen können. Das Vertrauen in das internationale Finanzsystem könnte wiederhergestellt werden, wenn ein neuer Standard für ein globales Geldsystem entstehen würde. Das könnte die chinesische Währung, die an Gold oder einen Rohstoffkorb gebunden ist, sein.

Due to buoyant capital inflows East Asian central banks with exchange rate targets accumulate foreign reserves and thereby increase surplus liquidity. East Asian central banks with more flexible exchange rate regimes also face surplus liquidity that mainly emanates from past accumulation of foreign reserves. We show based on an augmented Barro-Gordon-type central bank loss function that in both cases surplus liquidity limits monetary policy autonomy. In case of fixed exchange rates East Asian central banks can escape from the impossible trinity and gain monetary policy autonomy by using non-market-based sterilization which leads to financial sector distortions. In a flexible exchange rate regime monetary policy autonomy can be gained without financial sector distortions by using market-based sterilization. As central banks face substantial sterilization costs as well as revaluation losses on foreign reserves, however, monetary policy autonomy is eroded.

Central banks have recently introduced new policy initiatives, including a policy called ‘Quantitative Easing’ (QE). Since it has been argued by the Bank of England that “Standard economic models are of limited use in these unusual circumstances, and the empirical evidence is extremely limited” (Bank of England, 2009b), we have taken an entirely empirical approach and have focused on the QE-experience, on which substantial data is available, namely that of Japan (2001-2006). Recent literature on the effectiveness of QE has neglected any reference to final policy goals. In this paper, we adopt the view that ultimately effectiveness will be measured by whether it will be able to “boost spending” (Bank of England, 2009b) and “will ultimately be judged by their impact on the wider macroeconomy” (Bank of England, 2010). In line with a widely held view among leading macroeconomists from various persuasions, while attempting to stay agnostic and open-minded on the distribution of demand changes between real output and inflation, we have thus identified nominal GDP growth as the key final policy goal of monetary policy. The empirical research finds that the policy conducted by the Bank of Japan between 2001 and 2006 makes little empirical difference while an alternative policy targeting credit creation (the original definition of QE) would likely have been more successful.

The adoption of quantitative easing (QE) policy by the United States (US) Federal Reserve Bank since early 2009 has aroused widespread concerns in Asia and elsewhere regarding its possible impact in terms of the weakening of the US dollar and stimulating capital outflows to emerging economies that might increase inflationary pressures in them. This report investigates possible impacts of US quantitative easing policy on Asian economies and financial markets. Our basic approach is to take the period of November 2009-October 2010, when no quantitative easing took place, as a baseline period against which we can compare the effects of quantitative easing on monetary flows during the QE1 and QE2 periods. We estimate that about 40% of the increase in the US monetary base in the QE1 period leaked out in the form of increased gross private capital outflows and about one-third leaked out during the first two quarters of the QE2 period. An excess private financial capital inflow to Emerging Asia of $9 billion per quarter was estimated for the first two quarters of the QE2 period, which was relatively consistent with the estimated amounts of the excess increases in foreign exchange reserves and the monetary base in the region during that period. However, this amount is small, and hence was unlikely to have a significant impact on financial markets, economic activity or inflation. We also investigate the impacts of QE policy on regional bond yields and exchange rates using event window analysis, and find that the greatest impacts were a stronger Korean won and lower bond yields in Indonesia.

This paper investigates the effectiveness of the ‘quantitative easing’ policy, as implemented by the Bank of England in March 2009. Similar policies had been previously implemented in Japan, the U.S. and the Eurozone. The effectiveness is measured by the impact of Bank of England policies (including, but not limited to QE) on nominal GDP growth – the declared goal of the policy, according to the Bank of England. Unlike the majority of the literature on the topic, the general-to-specific econometric modeling methodology (a.k.a. the ‘Hendry’ or ‘LSE’ methodology) is employed for this purpose. The empirical analysis indicates that QE as defined and announced in March 2009 had no apparent effect on the UK economy. Meanwhile, it is found that a policy of ‘quantitative easing’ defined in the original sense of the term (Werner, 1994) is supported by empirical evidence: a stable relationship between a lending aggregate (disaggregated M4 lending, i.e. bank credit for GDP transactions) and nominal GDP is found. The findings imply that BoE policy should more directly target the growth of bank credit for GDP-transactions.

The recent financial crisis has highlighted the limits of the "originate to distribute" model of banking, but its nexus with the macroeconomy and monetary policy remains unexplored. I build a DSGE model with banks (along the lines of Holmström and Tirole [28] and Parlour and Plantin [39]) and examine its properties with and without active secondary markets for credit risk transfer. The possibility of transferring credit reduces the impact of liquidity shocks on bank balance sheets, but also reduces the bank incentive to monitor. As a result, secondary markets allow to release bank capital and exacerbate the effect of productivity and other macroeconomic shocks on output and inflation. By offering a possibility of capital recycling and by reducing bank monitoring, secondary credit markets in general equilibrium allow banks to take on more risk.

Given buoyant capital inflows and managed exchange rates the majority of emerging market central banks have continued to accumulate massive foreign reserves. If left unsterilized, the liquidity expansion can threaten domestic macroeconomic stability. To contain domestic inflation these central banks absorb rather then provide liquidity in their regular monetary policy operations. Based on an augmented Barro-Gordon framework we show that inflation targeting within an environment of surplus liquidity is less efficient, because absorbing liquidity raises the costs of monetary policy operations. By implementing sterilization costs into the central bank's objective function the inflation bias increases.

This paper examines the interactions between money, interest rates, goods and commodity prices at a global level. For this purpose, we aggregate data for major OECD countries and follow the Johansen/Juselius cointegrated VAR approach. Our empirical model supports the view that, when controlling for interest rate changes and thus different monetary policy stances, money (defined as a global liquidity aggregate) is still a key factor to determine the long-run homogeneity of commodity prices and goods prices movements. The cointegrated VAR model fits with the data for the analyzed period from the 1970s until 2008 very well. Our empirical results appear to be overall robust since they pass inter alia a series of recursive tests and are stable for varying compositions of the commodity indices. The empirical evidence is in line with theoretical considerations. The inclusion of commodity prices helps to identify a significant monetary transmission process from global liquidity to other macro variables such as goods prices. We find further support of the conjecture that monetary aggregates convey useful information about variables such as commodity prices which matter for aggregate demand and thus inflation. Given this clear empirical pattern it appears justified to argue that global liquidity merits attention in the same way as the worldwide level of interest rates received in the recent debate about the world savings and liquidity glut as one of the main drivers of the current financial crisis, if not possibly more.

The small decline in the value of mortgage-related assets relative to the large total losses associated with the financial crisis suggests the presence of financial amplification mechanisms, which allow relatively small shocks to propagate through the financial system. We review the literature on financial amplification mechanisms and discuss the Federal Reserve's interventions during different stages of the crisis in terms of this literature. We interpret the Fed's early-stage liquidity programs as working to dampen balance sheet amplifications arising from the positive feedback between financial and asset prices. By comparison, the Fed's later-stage crisis programs take into account adverse-selection amplifications that operate via increases in credit risk and the externality imposed by risky borrowers on safe ones. Finally, we provide new empirical evidence that increases in the amount outstanding of funds supplied by the Fed reduce the Libor-OIS spread during periods of high liquidity risk. In contrast, reductions in the Fed's liquidity supply in 2009 did not increase the spread. Our analysis has implications for the impact on asset prices of a potential withdrawal of liquidity supply by the Fed.

The global imbalances of the 2000s and the recent global financial crisis are intimately connected. Both originate in the combination of economic policies adopted by the two key economies, the US and China. Global financial markets served as a transmission belt, both during the boom as during the bust. In the US, the interaction among the Fed's monetary stance, global real interest rates, distorted incentives in credit markets, and financial innovation created the mix of conditions which first drove growth, but then made the US the epicenter of the global financial crisis. Exchange rate and other economic policies followed by emerging markets such as China and the oil-exporting countries contributed to the US ability to borrow cheaply abroad and thereby finance its unsustainable housing bubble during the upswing. But we find that the key drivers of asset prices are global liquidity conditions. Central banks flooded the markets with ample liquidity. Mopping up this excess liquidity will be one major task for central banks worldwide, which needs to be done in a coordinated fashion. Moreover, our analysis has shown that liquidity will first show up in asset price inflation and only later in consumer goods inflation. This renders it difficult for central bank to exit from their current very expansive monetary policy stance if they continue to focus only on price stability.

The appropriate design of monetary policy in integrated financial markets is one of the most challenging areas for central banks. One hot topic is whether the increase in liquidity has contributed to the formation of price bubbles in asset markets in the years preceding the financial crisis. If linkages are strong, the inclusion of asset prices in the monetary policy rule may limit speculative runs and negative spillovers to the real economy in the future. To examine the impacts of liquidity shocks on real share and house prices, VAR models are specified for the US and the euro area, as well as global VARs to control for international feedback. The analysis points to some impact of liquidity shocks on house prices, but the effect is restricted to the US. Stock market prices are not affected. Thus, the results suggest that the link between liquidity and asset prices is fragile and far from being obvious. This publication was produced as part of the FINESS project, funded by the European Commission through the 7th Framework Programme under contract no. 217266 (http://www.finess-web.eu/).

In a market-based financial system, banking and capital market developments are inseparable, and funding conditions are closely tied to fluctuations in the leverage of market-based financial intermediaries. Offering a window on liquidity, the balance sheet growth of broker-dealers provides a sense of the availability of credit. Contractions of broker-dealer balance sheets have tended to precede declines in real economic growth, even before the current turmoil. For this reason, balance sheet quantities of market-based financial intermediaries are important macroeconomic state variables for the conduct of monetary policy.

Traditionally, aggregate liquidity shocks are modelled as exogenous events. Extending our previous work (Cao & Illing, 2007), this paper analyses the adequate policy response to endogenous systemic liquidity risk. We analyse the feedback between lender of last resort policy and incentives of private banks, determining the aggregate amount of liquidity available. We show that imposing minimum liquidity standards for banks ex ante are a crucial requirement for sensible lender of last resort policy. In addition, we analyse the impact of equity requirements and narrow banking, in the sense that banks are required to hold sufficient liquid funds so as to pay out in all contingencies. We show that such a policy is strictly inferior to imposing minimum liquidity standards ex ante combined with lender of last resort policy.

The paper models the interaction between risk taking in the financial sector and central bank policy for the case of pure illiquidity risk. It is shown that, when bad states are highly unlikely, public provision of liquidity may improve the allocation, even though it encourages more risk taking (less liquid investment) by private banks. In general, however, there is an incentive of financial intermediaries to free ride on liquidity in good states, resulting in excessively low liquidity in bad states. In the prevailing mixed-strategy equilibrium, depositors are worse off than if banks would coordinate on more liquid investment. In that case, liquidity injection will make the free riding problem even worse. The results show that even in the case of pure illiquidity risk, there is a serious commitment problem for central banks. We show that unconditional free lending against good collateral, as suggested by the Bagehot Rule, fails to address the moral hazard problem: Even though we consider a model with pure illiquidity risk, it turns out that such a policy will encourage banks to behave naughty, providing insufficient level of liquidity.

The nineteenth-century economist Walter Bagehot maintained that in order to prevent bank panics, a central bank should provide liquidity at a very high rate of interest. However, most of the theoretical literature on liquidity provision suggests that central banks should lend at an interest rate of zero. This latter recommendation is broadly consistent with the Federal Reserve's behavior in the days following September 11, 2001. This paper shows that Bagehot's recommendation can be reconciled with the Fed's policy if one recognizes that Bagehot had in mind a commodity money regime in which the amount of reserves available is limited. A high price for this liquidity allows banks that need it most to self-select. To the contrary, the Fed has a virtually unlimited ability to temporarily expand the money supply so that self-selection is unnecessary.

This paper explores liquidity movements in stock and Treasury bond markets over a period of more than 1800 trading days. Cross-market dynamics in liquidity are documented by estimating a vector autoregressive model for liquidity (that is, bid-ask spreads and depth), returns, volatility, and order flow in the stock and bond markets. We find that a shock to quoted spreads in one market affects the spreads in both markets, and that return volatility is an important driver of liquidity. Innovations to stock and bond market liquidity and volatility prove to be significantly correlated, suggesting that common factors drive liquidity and volatility in both markets. Monetary expansion increases equity market liquidity during periods of financial crises, and unexpected increases (decreases) in the federal funds rate lead to decreases (increases) in liquidity and increases (decreases) in stock and bond volatility. Finally, we find that flows to the stock and government bond sectors play an important role in forecasting stock and bond liquidity. The results establish a link between 'macro' liquidity, or money flows, and 'micro' or transactions liquidity.

Money provides liquidity services through a cash-in-advance constraint. The exchange of commodities and assets extends over an infinite horizon under uncertainty and a complete asset market. Monetary policy sets the path of rates of interest and accommodates the demand for balances. Competitive equilibria exist. But, for a fixed path of rates of interest, there is a non-trivial multiplicity of equilibrium paths of prices of commodities. Determinacy requires that, subject to no-arbitrage and in addition to rates of interest, the prices of state-contingent revenues be set. – Money ; equilibrium ; indeterminacy ; monetary policy ; fiscal policy.

Money, which provides liquidity, is distinct from debt. The introduction of a bank that issues money in exchange for debt and pays out its profit as dividend to shareholders modifies the model of overlapping generations. Monetary policy can set, alternatively, the nominal rate of interest or the circulation of real balances. The set of equilibrium paths, their dynamic properties, as well as the scope and effectiveness of monetary policy are significantly altered: (1) there is a continuum of Pareto comparable steady state paths, indexed by the nominal rate of interest; (2) for a set level of real balances, the associated steady state may be stable or unstable, but cyclical uctuations do not arise; and, (3) though low rates of interest are associated with superior steady state allocations, they may account for unstable steady states or stable endogenous cycles.

Global excess liquidity roaming the world’s financial markets (or its sudden absence) is sometimes believed to limit sovereign monetary policy even in large economies such as the euro area. However, there is still discussion about what constitutes global excess liquidity and how exactly it shapes the policy environment. Our approach adjusts liquidity for longerterm interest rate and output effects and focuses on U.S. and Japanese liquidity as relevant proxies for global developments from a euro area perspective. We find that both excess liquidity in Japan and, in particular, the U.S. tend to lead developments in euro area liquidity. U.S. excess liquidity also enters consistently positive as a determinant of euro area inflation and is shown to be Granger-causal for euro area inflation in an out-of-sample forecasting exercise. In part, this result seems to be related to a weakening of the euro area interest rate channel during times of excessive U.S. liquidity. In contrast, the influence of Japanese and euro area excess liquidity on euro area inflation is more limited.