Word: banking
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...Such times complicate the standard central-bank playbook - which includes the seminal Taylor Rule. Proposed by Stanford economics professor John Taylor in the early 1990s, the Taylor Rule provides a formula for raising and lowering policy rates based on two variables: whether inflation is above or below the central bank's target, and whether economic growth is above or below its "full employment" potential. If inflation is at target and the economy is operating at full employment, then the Taylor Rule says that the central bank should set the overnight interest rate at a fixed "neutral" level, which Taylor estimated...
...Taylor Rule provides less guidance when the neutral interest rate is shifting rapidly due to changes in financial conditions, which is exactly what is happening right now. Banks and other lenders are demanding a higher premium for lending to households and companies. To prevent the cost of borrowing from increasing - to keep interest rates at neutral, in other words - the central bank must cut the policy rate. If the central bank wants then to provide monetary stimulus to an ailing economy, it must reduce the policy rate even further to get below the newly depressed neutral rate...
...central bank does not act quickly enough - and deteriorating financial conditions create a self-perpetuating feedback loop with a collapsing economy - the bank may end up just "chasing the neutral rate down" without reaching the level needed to jump-start demand. Japan's experience in the 1990s provides a cautionary tale: even 0% rates failed to resuscitate the economy...
...timely manner as needed to support growth and provide adequate insurance against downside risks." And Fed actions speak louder than words: the 1.25 percentage point reduction in the overnight policy rate at the end of January was the most rapid cut by the U.S. central bank in recent history...
...also taking other steps. It recently expanded on a program introduced late last year to inject billions of dollars of liquidity into the banking system. The reason is the continued rise of key interest rates - including all-important mortgage rates - due to financial market distress. We are therefore poised not only to see further policy-rate cuts, but also continued nontraditional central-bank actions to get credit markets working again, including possible outright purchases of U.S. mortgage-backed securities...