MNI BRIEF: NY Fed Tool Indicates Reserves Remain Abundant
MNI (WASHINGTON) - The first estimates of a new tool from the New York Fed indicate that reserves in the banking system remain abundant, suggesting the U.S. central bank's 2-year-old quantitative tightening program has room to run.
"Our most recent estimates suggest that, although reserves have declined by over USD1 trillion since their peak of USD4.2 trillion in November 2021, they remain abundant," authors John Williams, Gara Afonso, Domenico Giannone, and Gabriele La Spada wrote in a new blog. Williams is president of the New York Fed and the co-authors are current and former staff economists.
The New York Fed's Reserve Demand Elasticity (RDE) tool models the slope of the reserve demand curve to measure the elasticity of the federal funds rate to changes in the level of reserves. When reserves are scarce, the RDE measure is significantly negative, while ample reserves would see RDE modestly negative. The first RDE estimates include data as of October 11 and are indistinguishable from zero, meaning the fed funds rate does not respond to shifts in reserve supply.
One hope of researchers is the new tool can give policymakers an early warning signal up to a year ahead of when reserves are becoming too tight.