The Feds Balance Sheet and the Monetary Base-美联储资产负债表教程.pdfVIP

A P P E N D I X T O C H A P T E R The Fed’s Balance Sheet 13 and the Monetary Base Just as any other bank has a balance sheet that lists its assets and liabilities, so does the Fed. We examine each of its categories of assets and liabilities because changes in them are an important way the Fed manipulates the money supply. Assets 1. Securities. These are the Fed’s holdings of securities, which consist primarily of Treasury securities but in the past have also included banker’s acceptances. The total amount of securities is controlled by open market operations (the Fed’s purchase and sale of these securities). As shown in Table 1, “Securities” is by far the largest category of assets in the Fed’s balance sheet. 2. Discount loans. These are loans the Fed makes to banks. The amount is affected by the Fed’s setting the discount rate, the interest rate that the Fed charges banks for these loans. These first two Fed assets are important because they earn interest. Because the lia- bilities of the Fed do not pay interest, the Fed makes billions of dollars every year—its assets earn income, and its liabilities cost nothing. Although it returns most of its earn- ings to the federal government, the Fed does spend some of it on “worthy causes,” such as supporting economic research. TABLE 1 Consolidated Balance Sheet of the Federal Reserve System ($ billions, end of 2005)