This paper evaluates the strength of the balance sheet channel in the U.S. monetary policy transmission mechanism over the past three decades. Using a Factor-Augmented Vector Autoregression model on an expanded data set, including sectoral balance sheet variables, we show that the balance sheets of various economic agents act as important links in the monetary policy transmission mechanism. Balance sheets of financial intermediaries, such as commercial banks, asset-backed-security issuers and, to a lesser extent, security brokers and dealers, shrink in response to monetary tightening, while money market fund assets grow. The balance sheet effects are comparable in magnitude to the traditional interest rate channel. However, their economic significance in the run-up to the recent financial crisis was small. Large increases in interest rates would have been needed to avert a rapid rise of house prices and an unsustainable expansion of mortgage credit, suggesting an important role for macroprudential policies.

This book discusses wide topics related to current issues in economic growth and development, international trade, macroeconomic and financial stability, inflation, monetary policy, banking, productivity, agriculture and food security. It is a collection of seventeen research papers selected based on their quality in terms of contemporary topic, newness in the methodology, and themes. All selected papers have followed an empirical approach to address research issues, and are segregated in five parts. Part one covers papers related to fiscal and price stability, monetary policy and economic growth. The second part contains works related to financial integration, capital market volatility and macroeconomic stability. Third part deals with issues related to international trade and economic growth. Part four covers topics related to productivity and firm performance. The final part discusses issues related to agriculture and food security. The book would be of interest to researchers, academicians as a ready reference on current issues in economics and finance.

Provides an in-depth overview of the Federal Reserve System, including information about monetary policy and the economy, the Federal Reserve in the international sphere, supervision and regulation, consumer and community affairs and services offered by Reserve Banks. Contains several appendixes, including a brief explanation of Federal Reserve regulations, a glossary of terms, and a list of additional publications.

Since 2007, central banks of industrialized countries have counteracted financial instability, recession, and deflationary risks with unprecedented monetary policy operations. While generally regarded as successful, these measures also led to an exceptional increase in the size of central bank balance sheets. The book first introduces the subject by explaining monetary policy operations in normal times, including the key instruments (open market operations, standing facilities, reserve requirements, and the collateral framework). Second, the book reviews the basic mechanics of financial crises as they have hit economies many times. The book then explains what central banks need to do to when financial markets and banks are impaired to fulfil their monetary policy and financial stability mandates. Besides demonstrating the need for non-conventional monetary policy measures, the book also highlights their dangers, such as moral hazard and increased central bank risk taking. The book draws a number of lessons from the crisis on non-conventional monetary policy operations, assessing what measures have worked well, and how a framework should be designed in future normal times such as to contribute to make financial crises less likely. Central bank monetary policy operations have traditionally been considered as a matter of practice, while the macroeconomic modelling of the transmission mechanism of monetary policy is regarded as a discipline relying on substantial theory ('monetary economics'). However, monetary policy operations can equally benefit from a theory, and from a normative framework to guide policy choices. The limited interest that monetary policy operations have found for many decades in academic economics may well have contributed to the many misunderstandings on central bank actions over recent years. This book provides a basis for a better theoretical understanding of real-world monetary policy operations.

Understanding Financial Accounts seeks to show how a range of questions on financial developments can be answered with the framework of financial accounts and balance sheets, by providing non-technical explanations illustrated with practical examples.

This edition of Monetary and Financial Statistics Manual and Compilation Guide (Manual) updates and merges into one volume methodological and practical aspects of the compilation process of monetary statistics. The Manual is aimed at compilers and users of monetary data, offering guidance for the collection and analytical presentation of monetary statistics. The Manual includes standardized report forms, providing countries with a tool for compiling and reporting harmonized data for the central bank, other depository corporations, and other financial corporations.