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Open-market Operations

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Abstract

An open-market operation is essentially a transaction undertaken by a central bank in the market for securities (or foreign exchange) that has the effect of supplying reserves to, or draining reserves from, the banking system. Open-market operations are one of the several instruments – including lending or discount-window operations and reserve requirements – available to a central bank to affect the cost and availability of bank reserves and hence the amount of money in the economy and, at the margin, credit flows.

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Bibliography

  • Bank of England. 1984. The development and operation of monetary policy, 1960–1983, 156–164. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

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  • Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. 1984. The Federal Reserve System: Purposes and functions, 7th edn. Washington, DC.

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  • Federal Reserve Bank of New York Quarterly Review 10(1), Spring 1985, 36–56. (Reports for earlier years are available in the same publication.

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  • Meek, P. 1982. US monetary policy and financial markets. New York: Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Monetary policy and open market operations in 1984.

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Axilrod, S.H., Wallich, H.C. (2018). Open-market Operations. In: The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_1301

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