IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedkrw/103551.html

Rethinking Central Bank LSAPs: The Power of Market Functioning Purchases

Author

Listed:

Abstract

We show that operationally similar central bank asset purchases can have markedly different effects. Combining security-level data on the Federal Reserve’s duration-adjusted asset holdings with narrative event-based identification reveals that purchases made for accommodation strongly affect yields, while purchases made for market functioning primarily enhance liquidity. We advance a partial equilibrium model of an intermediated bond market that can reconcile these findings. When trading flow is orderly, large-scale asset purchases (LSAPs) operate through the expected supply of duration with large effects on yields. When trading flow is disorderly, LSAPs reduce dealer inventories, improve liquidity, and compress bid-ask spreads.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew Lee Smith & Victor J. Valcarcel, 2026. "Rethinking Central Bank LSAPs: The Power of Market Functioning Purchases," Research Working Paper RWP 26-05, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
  • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedkrw:103551
    DOI: 10.18651/RWP2026-05
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.kansascityfed.org/research/research-working-papers/rethinking-central-bank-lsaps-the-power-of-market-functioning-purchases/
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.18651/RWP2026-05?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • E3 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles
    • E4 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates
    • E5 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit

    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:fip:fedkrw:103551. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Kira Lillard (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbkcus.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.