미 연준과 유럽중앙은행의 비전통적 통화정책 수행원칙에 관한 고찰

In responding to the Global Financial Crisis, both the Federal ReserveBoard (FRB) and the European Central Bank (ECB) have introduced variouskinds of “unconventional”monetary policy measures. Previous papers focusedon reviewing the measures or analyzing their macroeconomic influences. In contrast, this paper compares the backgrounds and principles of theunconventional monetary policy conducted by these two central banks andtries to draw some implications that can shed light on monetary policynormalization process. As explained in various speeches by former Chairman Ben Bernankeand other senior officials, FRB’s unconventional measures can be broadlyclassified into two groups: ones for financial stability and the others foreconomic stability. The first group of measures-introducing new liquiditysupply facilities such as TAF (term auction facility), and intervening inMMF (money market funds), CP (commercial paper) and ABS (asset-backedsecurities) markets, for example-corresponds to the lender-of-last-resortfunction of a central bank and has been basically guided by the Bagehot’sdictum: central bank should lend without limit to liquidity-constrained butstill-solvable banks against good collateral. These measures were introducedswiftly to help calm financial panics and rather short-lived as financialconditions improved. That is, these measures were introduced well beforethe policy rate hit the zero lower bound and were subsequently withdrawnshortly after financial market functioning was restored. Operation twistand quantitative easing fall into the second group of measures, which hasbeen adopted in order to influence longer-term interest rates directly whilethe short-term policy rate reached the effective zero lower bound at the end of 2008. FRB appears to acknowledge the sequentiality of conventionaland unconventional measures as long as economic stability is concerned:first conventional then unconventional measures, and in exiting, unwindingunconventional measures first before beginning to raise the policy rate. In contrast, ECB makes it clear that unconventional measures havebeen designed and implemented in order to focus on its primary objective:maintaining price stability. As a result, ECB has emphasized equal treatmentof all commercial banks within their ability to provide collateral, ratherthan following the Bagehot’s dictum, in providing liquidities. In fact, ECBmainly uses open market operations (longer-term refinancing operations,in particular) and provides whatever amount of liquidity to commercial banksat its policy rate as long as the collaterals are secured. In addition, ECBhas a different view on the relationship between conventional and un-conventional measures: unconventional measures can be deployed beforethe policy rate hits the zero lower bound, and the policy rate can be raisedbefore unconventional measures in force are withdrawn. Furthermore, ECBdoes not postulate financial distress as a direct cause of unconventionalpolicy measures. These differences regarding principles for unconventional measuresseem to reflect the institutional and financial-market structures under whichthe two central banks operate. FRB introduces unconventional policy measuresto achieve financial and economic stability; ECB emphasizes price stabilityin the medium-run perspective in implementing unconventional monetarypolicy. Behind these behaviors lies the difference of mandate of the twocentral banks. In particular, the FRB’s dual mandate (full employment andprice stability) contrasts with the ECB’s single mandate to pursue pricestability. Monetary policy operating frameworks of the two central bankshave also contributed to the differences of principles of unconventionalmeasures. FRB conducts open market operations mainly with primary dealers,consisting of 22 large commercial and investment banks (as of September2014); in contrast, ECB maintains a large number of trading partners (around900 for Deutsche Bundesbank only, as of September 2014). Against thisbackground, FRB swiftly established new lending facilities for primary dealersshortly after detecting problems in financial market functioning; ECB,however, introduced fixed-rate full allotment policy in its traditional openmarket operations to honor equal treatment mentioned above. It should be kept in mind that the principles of FRB and ECB wouldevolve in the future as the environment surrounding the world economychanges its course-especially regarding the importance of financialstability as a possible mandate for the central bank.