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Reserves Were Not So Ample After All

Author

Listed:
  • Adam Copeland
  • Darrell Duffie
  • Yilin Yang

Abstract

The Federal Reserve's "balance-sheet normalization," which reduced aggregate reserves between 2017 and September 2019, increased repo rate distortions, the severity of rate spikes, and intraday payment timing stresses, culminating with a significant disruption in Treasury repo markets in mid-September 2019. We show that repo rates rose above efficient-market levels when the total reserve balances held at the Federal Reserve by the largest repo-active bank holding companies declined and that repo rate spikes are strongly associated with delayed intraday payments of reserves to these large bank holding companies. Intraday payment timing stresses are magnified by early-morning settlement of Treasury security issuances. Substantially higher aggregate levels of reserves than existed in the period leading up to September 2019 would likely have eliminated most or all of these payment timing stresses and repo rate spikes.

Suggested Citation

  • Adam Copeland & Darrell Duffie & Yilin Yang, 2021. "Reserves Were Not So Ample After All," NBER Working Papers 29090, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29090
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    Cited by:

    1. Lu, Yundi & Valcarcel, Victor J., 2024. "A tale of two tightenings," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).
    2. Girotti, Mattia & Horny, Guillaume, 2023. "Monetary policy transmission through banks when liquidity is abundant but unevenly distributed," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 56(C).
    3. Smith, A. Lee & Valcarcel, Victor J., 2023. "The financial market effects of unwinding the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    4. Eisenschmidt, Jens & Ma, Yiming & Zhang, Anthony Lee, 2024. "Monetary policy transmission in segmented markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    5. Koresh Galil & Lior David-Pur & Mosi Rosenboim & Offer Moshe Shapir, 2023. "Shedding Light on the Dynamics of the Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR)," Working Papers 2310, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Department of Economics.
    6. David Skovmand & Jacob Bjerre Skov, 2022. "Decomposing LIBOR in Transition: Evidence from the Futures Markets," Papers 2201.06930, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2022.
    7. Paulick, Jan, 2022. "Financial market infrastructures : Essays on liquidity, participant behaviour and information extraction," Other publications TiSEM 004942ed-f68d-40cc-a830-b, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    8. Corell, Felix, 2025. "Hand-to-mouth banks: deposit inflows and the marginal propensity to lend," Working Paper Series 3085, European Central Bank.
    9. John Caramichael & Gordon Y. Liao, 2022. "Stablecoins: Growth Potential and Impact on Banking," International Finance Discussion Papers 1334, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    10. Engel, Charles & Bianchi, Javier & Bigio, Saki, 2021. "Scrambling for Dollars: International Liquidity, Banks and Exchange Rates," CEPR Discussion Papers 16712, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. d'Avernas, Adrien & Vandeweyer, Quentin & Petersen, Damon, 2025. "The central bank’s balance sheet and treasury market disruptions," Working Paper Series 3066, European Central Bank.
    12. Jordan Barone & Alain P. Chaboud & Adam Copeland & Cullen Kavoussi & Frank M. Keane & Seth Searls, 2023. "The Global Dash for Cash: Why Sovereign Bond Market Functioning Varied across Jurisdictions in March 2020," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 29(3), pages 1-29, December.
    13. Guillaume Bazot & Eric Monnet & Matthias Morys, 2024. "Central banks and the absorption of international shocks (1891-2019)," Working Papers halshs-04778323, HAL.
    14. Mark Paddrik & Carlos Ramirez, 2025. "Treasury Tri-party Repo Pricing," Working Papers 25-07, Office of Financial Research, US Department of the Treasury.
    15. Benoit Nguyen & Davide Tomio & Miklos Vari, 2023. "Safe Asset Scarcity and Monetary Policy Transmission," Working papers 934, Banque de France.
    16. Mark A. Carlson & Zack Saravay & Mary Tian, 2025. "Fed Repo Operations and Dealer Intermediation," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2025-052, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    17. Jonathan Witmer, 2025. "The Optimum Quantity of Central Bank Reserves," Staff Working Papers 25-15, Bank of Canada.
    18. Egemen Eren & Philip Wooldridge, 2021. "Non-bank financial institutions and the functioning of government bond markets," BIS Papers, Bank for International Settlements, number 119, February.
    19. Dautović, Ernest & Gambacorta, Leonardo & Reghezza, Alessio, 2023. "Supervisory Policy Stimulus: Evidence from the Euro Area Dividend Recommendation," CEPR Discussion Papers 18175, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    20. Kahn, R. Jay & McCormick, Matthew & Nguyen, Vy & Paddrik, Mark & Young, H. Peyton, 2023. "Anatomy of the Repo Rate Spikes in September 2019," Journal of Financial Crises, Yale Program on Financial Stability (YPFS), vol. 5(4), pages 1-25, July.
    21. Corell, Felix, 2025. "Hand-to-mouth banks: Deposit inflows and the marginal propensity to lend," LawFin Working Paper Series 59, Goethe University, Center for Advanced Studies on the Foundations of Law and Finance (LawFin).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G2 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services

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