Freeman (1999) proposes a model in which discount window lending and open market operations have different effects. This is important because in most of the literature, these policies are indistinguishable. However, Freeman's argument that the central bank should absorb losses associated with...

In this paper, we argue that the observed difference in the cost of intraday and overnight liquidity is part of an optimal payments system design. In our environment, the interest charged on overnight liquidity affects output, while the cost of intraday liquidity only affects the distribution of...

We study the incentives of participants in a real-time gross settlement system with and without the addition of a liquidity-saving mechanism (queue). Participants in our model face a liquidity shock and different costs for delaying payments. They trade off the cost of delaying a payment against...