Quantitative Easing (QE). Now there’s a phrase to ruminate about. It was created by Dr Richard Werner, Professor of International Banking at the School of Management, University of Southampton. He used this phrase in order to propose a new form of monetary stimulation policy by the central bank that did not rely rely on traditional methods of stimulating the economy which appeared to have failed in Japan.
When you make a deposit into the bank, the bank will lend out that fraction of the deposit that will leave it with its desired or regulated reserve ratio. So if the reserve ratio is 10% the bank will lend out up to 90% or £90 out of every £100 you deposit.
The bank into which the £90 loan is deposited will in turn lend out 90% or £81 of this deposit. The money merrygoround continues until the banks have lent out £1000. Your £100 represents the 10% reserve ratio. This represents an increase in the money supply since all depositors can access the £1000. But if there are many hundreds of thousands of depositors the chance of this happening at the same time is very low, unless there is a run on the banks. Banks therefore depend on the average of all deposits and withdrawals in a day netting out to almost zero.
This simple analysis is, in fact, not quite correct. If the £100 you deposit has been withdrawn from another UK bank then that bank will have had to reduce its loans setting up a merrygoround in the opposite direction. So in this case there will be no net change in deposits. For this reason it is possible to treat all UK banks as one when doing this sort of analysis.
The Money that comes from central banks, however, is new money. When it is deposited in a commercial bank it can be lent out and start the money merrygoround without any corresponding opposite reaction.
When a crisis hits the banks they have a problem of knowing which of the loans or investments they have made are sound. Because of this they will all decide to hold more cash, perhaps 30% more, so that their desired reserve ratio is now 40%. If the banks had £1000 of loans and £100 of cash they will now wish to call in any loans they can, like overdrafts, so that they now have £250 in loans and £100 in cash in order to meet their, new, desired reserve ratio. This 75% reduction in loans would, if allowed to happen, cause havoc in the economy.
The solution is to give the commercial banks sufficient money to stop this happening. In this case deposits would have to increase by £300 to have the desired effect. Now with £400 a loan base of £1000 can be supported.
To do this the Central Bank buys government securities and perhaps high grade corporate bonds from the banks using new money created for the purpose. This gives the banks more money, so allowing them to increase their deposits to the desired £400 required to stop the loan recalls.
Buying in the government securities from the banks causes their price to increase and this means that, happily, interest rates drop. Just what you want in a crisis!
If you now do nothing the crisis will abate and banks will now increase lending so as to get back to their 10% ratio. But they now hold £400 to act as reserves. This means that deposits, and hence money supply, will increase to £4000 compared to the original £1000. So much money going into the economy so quickly will lead to massive inflation. What can be done?
Well the central bank will now try to sell the securities and bonds back to the banks in return for the excess cash. The bankers will protest. After all they are lending to companies and people just as the government wanted them to. But, eventually, they will sell the securities back, not of course at the high price the central bank originally paid, but at a much lower price. This will give the banks a(nother) good profit and interest rates will as a result of the lower price go up, so helping to choke of any incipient inflation.
Of course the Central Bank must commence selling the securities back to the banks at the correct moment. Too early and any recession is extended, too late and rapid inflation occurs.
What could possibly go wrong? Next week the grizzly story!