IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ses/arsjes/1997-iv-3.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do Central Banks Need Minimum Reserves?

Author

Listed:
  • Georg Rich

Abstract

In this paper I tried to show that the economic arguments in support of reserve requirements are not strong. Reserve requirements were long regarded as an essential instrument for the control of the money supply and the ultimate target variables of monetary policy. However, a substantial body of research suggests that the importance of reserve requirements for monetary control has been overstated. Central banks operating in highly developed and globalized financial markets are well advised to employ market-related techniques of monetary policy, rather than to rely on quantitative restrictions such as reserve requirements. If reserve ratios are high, such requirements may even turn out to be counterproductive in that they distort deposit and credit flows. This is likely to undermine the indicator role of monetary aggregates and to complicate the tasks of central banks. Nevertheless, modest reserve requirements may assist central banks in the operational aspects of monetary policy. Ample reserves allow commercial banks to play a shock-absorber role in the money market. Commercial-bank buffer stocks reduce the need for central banks to moderate interest-rate volatility by "fine-tuning" their money-market operations and/or by acting as lenders of first resort to commercial banks.

Suggested Citation

  • Georg Rich, 1997. "Do Central Banks Need Minimum Reserves?," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 133(IV), pages 691-708, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:ses:arsjes:1997-iv-3
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sjes.ch/papers/1997-IV-3.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Anonymous, 1959. "Bank for International Settlements," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 13(3), pages 486-486, July.
    2. Siegel, Jeremy J, 1981. "Bank Reserves and Financial Stability," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 36(5), pages 1073-1084, December.
    3. Bindseil, Ulrich, 1997. "Reserve requirements and economic stabilization," Discussion Paper Series 1: Economic Studies 1997,01e, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    4. William Poole, 1969. "Optimal choice of monetary policy instruments in a simple stochastic macro model," Special Studies Papers 2, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    5. Mervyn King, 1994. "Monetary policy in the UK," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 15(3), pages 109-128, August.
    6. Joshua N. Feinman, 1993. "Reserve requirements: history, current practice, and potential reform," Federal Reserve Bulletin, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.), issue Jun, pages 569-589.
    7. Baltensperger, Ernst, 1982. "Reserve Requirements and Economic Stability," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 14(2), pages 205-215, May.
    8. Kevin Clinton, 1997. "Implementation of Monetary Policy in a Regime with Zero Reserve Requirements," Staff Working Papers 97-8, Bank of Canada.
    9. William Poole, 1970. "Optimal Choice of Monetary Policy Instruments in a Simple Stochastic Macro Model," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 84(2), pages 197-216.
    10. Horrigan, Brian R., 1988. "Are reserve requirements relevant for economic stabilization?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 97-105, January.
    11. Gordon H. Sellon & Stuart E. Weiner, 1997. "Monetary policy without reserve requirements : case studies and options for the United States," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, vol. 82(Q II), pages 5-30.
    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. Bindseil, Ulrich, 1997. "Die Stabilisierungswirkungen von Mindestreserven," Discussion Paper Series 1: Economic Studies 1997,01, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    2. Morgunov, V.I. (Моргунов, В.И.), 2016. "The Liquidity Management of the Banking Sector and the Short-Term Money Market Interest Rates [Управление Ликвидностью Банковского Сектора И Краткосрочной Процентной Ставкой Денежного Рынка]," Working Papers 21311, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration.
    3. Christian Glocker & Pascal Towbin, 2012. "The Macroeconomic Effects of Reserve Requirements," WIFO Working Papers 420, WIFO.
    4. Christian Glocker & Pascal Towbin, 2012. "Reserve Requirements for Price and Financial Stability: When Are They Effective?," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 8(1), pages 65-114, March.
    5. Glocker, Christian & Towbin, Pascal, 2015. "Reserve requirements as a macroprudential instrument – Empirical evidence from Brazil," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 158-176.
    6. Haider Ali & Eatzaz Ahmad, 2014. "Choice of Monetary Policy Instrument under Targeting Regimes in a Simple Stochastic Macro Model," PIDE-Working Papers 2014:102, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics.
    7. Gordon H. Sellon & Stuart E. Weiner, 1997. "Monetary policy without reserve requirements : case studies and options for the United States," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, vol. 82(Q II), pages 5-30.
    8. Bindseil, Ulrich, 1997. "Reserve requirements and economic stabilization," Discussion Paper Series 1: Economic Studies 1997,01e, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    9. Ireland, Peter N., 2003. "Endogenous money or sticky prices?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(8), pages 1623-1648, November.
    10. Rajesh Singh & Chetan Subramanian, 2008. "The optimal choice of monetary policy instruments in a small open economy," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 41(1), pages 105-137, February.
    11. Stanley Black, 1984. "The Relationship between Exchange Rate Policy and Monetary Policy in Ten Industrial Countries," NBER Chapters, in: Exchange Rate Theory and Practice, pages 499-516, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Richard A. Haas & Steven A. Symansky, 1983. "Assessing dynamic properties of the MCM: a simulation approach," International Finance Discussion Papers 214, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    13. Peter J. Stemp, 1991. "Optimal Weights in a Check‐List of Monetary Indicators," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 67(1), pages 1-13, March.
    14. -, 1992. "CEPAL Review no.48," Revista CEPAL, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL), December.
    15. Goodhart, C.A.E. & Sunirand, P. & Tsomocos, D.P., 2011. "The optimal monetary instrument for prudential purposes," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 70-77, June.
    16. Henri Sterdyniak & Pierre Villa, 1986. "Des conséquences conjoncturelles de la régulation monétaire," Revue Économique, Programme National Persée, vol. 37(6), pages 963-998.
    17. M. Marzo, 2001. "Evaluating Monetary Policy Regimes: the Role of Nominal Rigidities," Working Papers 411, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    18. Jérôme Creel & Henri Sterdyniak, 1999. "La politique monétaire sans monnaie," Revue de l'OFCE, Programme National Persée, vol. 70(1), pages 111-153.
    19. Andrej Sokol & Michael Kumhof & Marco Pinchetti & Phurichai Rungcharoenkitkul, 2023. "CBDC policies in open economies," BIS Working Papers 1086, Bank for International Settlements.
    20. Charles I. Plosser & George P. Shultz & John C. Williams, 2016. "Panel on Independence, Accountability, and Transparency in Central Bank Governance," Book Chapters,in: John H. Cochrane & John B. Taylor (ed.), Central Bank Governance & Oversight Reforminancial Crisis, chapter 6 Hoover Institution, Stanford University.

    More about this item

    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:ses:arsjes:1997-iv-3. 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: Peter Steiner (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sgvssea.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.