With loan commitments negotiated in advance, the use of tight money to restrain nominal spending has asymmetric effects upon different categories of borrowers. This can reduce efficiency, even though aggregate demand is stabilized. This is illustrated in the context of an equilibrium model of financial intermediation with loan commitments, where monetary policy is characterized by a supply curve for reserves on the part of the central bank in an inter-bank market. If demand uncertainty relates primarily to the intensity of demand by each borrower with no difference in the degree of cyclicality of individual borrowers' demands, an inelastic supply of reserves by the central bank is optimal, because it stabilizes aggregate demand and as a result increases average capacity utilization. But if demand uncertainty relates primarily to the number of borrowers rather than to each one's demand for credit, an interest-rate smoothing policy is optimal, because it eliminates inefficient rationing of credit in high-demand states.
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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number
5660.
Length: Date of creation: Jul 1996 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:5660
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Find related papers by JEL classification: E50 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - General
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Richard H. Clarida & Mark Gertler, 1997.
"How the Bundesbank Conducts Monetary Policy,"
NBER Chapters,
in: Reducing Inflation: Motivation and Strategy, pages 363-412
National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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