Implementation of Monetary Policy: How Do Central Banks Set Interest Rates?

The federal funds market also functions as the core of a more extensive overnight market for credit free of reserve requirements and interest rate controls. Nonbank depositors supply funds to the overnight market through repurchase agreements (RPs) with their banks. Under an overnight repurchase agreement, a depositor lends funds to a bank by purchasing a security, which the bank repurchases the next day at a price agreed to in advance. In 1991, overnight RPs accounted for about 25 percent of overnight borrowings by large commercial banks. Banks use RPs to acquire funds free of reserve requirements and interest controls from...