Reserve requirements: A modern perspective
挑战传统观点，认为美联储调整准备金要求常出于非货币政策目的（如1992年缓解信贷紧缩），并论证准备金要求作为货币政策工具近期作用有限，更应视为对存款机构的税收。
The discussion in many money and banking textbooks would suggest that the Federal Reserve requires depository institutions to hold a minimum level of non-interest-earning reserves because (1) reserve requirements are a monetary policy tool that allows the Fed to expand the money supply and lower interest rates, and (2) reserve requirements improve the safety and soundness of depository institutions. This article argues that this \\"conventional wisdom\\" view is too narrow. ; The Fed often uses reserve requirement changes, the authors contend, to achieve non-monetary-policy objectives, as it did in 1992 to improve the profitability of depository institutions and ease the credit crunch of that time. The authors also challenge the notion that higher reserve requirements necessarily lead to greater safety and lower default risk for depository institutions. ; The article examines the relationship between reserve requirement changes and monetary policy, with the aim of demonstrating the recent, limited usefulness of reserve requirements as a monetary policy tool. The article proposes a more modern view of reserve requirements as a tax on depository institutions, ponders who really bears this tax, and summarizes a large and growing literature suggesting that perceived bank profitability is inversely affected by announced changes in reserve requirement ratios. The article also provides new evidence that the 1992 reserve requirement reductions were not associated with an increase in default risk for financial institutions that issue reservable instruments, as the conventional view would suggest.