The recent financial crisis saw a dramatic and persistent jump in interest rate spreads between overnight federal funds and longer-term interbank loans. The Fed took several actions to reduce these spreads, including the creation of the Term Auction Facility (TAF). The effectiveness of these...

On September 3-4, 2009 SUERF and Utrecht University School of Economicsorganized the Colloquium "The Quest for Stability" in Utrecht, the Netherlands. The papers included in this SUERF Study are based on contributions to the Colloquium.

At the center of the financial market crisis of 2007-2008 was a highly unusual jump in spreads between the overnight inter-bank lending rate and term London inter-bank offer rates (Libor). Because many private loans are linked to Libor rates, the sharp increase in these spreads raised the cost...

This chapter reviews the role of temporary price and wage rigidities in explaining of the dynamic relationship between money, real output, and inflation. The key properties to be explained are that monetary shocks have persistent, but not permanent, effects on real output, and that the...