Research On U.S. Federal Reserve's Rescue In The Financial Cirsis

The U.S. financial crisis is the most severe international financial crisis since theGreat Depression. The Fed's rescue plays an important role in maintaining financialstability and stimulating economic recovery. A thorough analysis on the Fed's rescueis helpful for understanding theoretically and practically the new development andcreator of the central bank's financial crisis rescue, and then, improving China'sfinancial crisis rescue strategies and mitigating the effect of crisis.This paper, by using a synthesized methodology of historical, comparative,normative and positive perspectives, studies the Fed's rescue in the following aspects:(1) the background of the Fed's rescue; (2) the measures of the Fed's rescue in theperspective of a lender of last resort; (3) the measures of the Fed's rescue in theperspective of monetary policy; (4) the effects of the Fed's rescue; (5) and theimplications for China.The financial crisis rescue origins from the theory of government intervention.Keynesian theory marked the birth of modern state interventionism in the GreatDepression. To know the cause of U.S. financial crisis for rescue, we can analyse thereasons in a macroeconomic and microeconomic perspectives, one is the globaleconomic imbalance and Fed's monetary policy mismanagement, and the other is thefinancial regulatory failure and the subprime mortgage with its securitization out ofcontrol. The Fed rescued positively because the U.S. financial crisis was a typicalsystemic crisis. The essential characteristics of a systemic financial crisis are its rapidinfection and enormous negative externalities. The central bank's duty of maintainingfinancial stability requires it to rescue in the systemic crisis. Lender of last resort andmonetary policy are both the measures which central bank would take in the financialcrisis.From a perspective of lender of last resort, theoretically, the transmission ofsystemic crisis determined the necessity of central bank's rescue. In the U.S. financialcrisis, the Fed plays a full role as a lender of last resort, through discount window andopen market operations and creating some new tools to provide liquidity. Particularly, the Fed rescued some large financial institutions such as Bear Stearns and AIG,because they were too big and strongly correlative with other institutions."Too big tofail"is certainly rational in theory and practice. The Fed, as the lender of last resort,characterized by breaking out the traditional rescue principles comprehensively,expanding the scope and carrying out cooperation furtherly.From a perspective of monetary policy, monetary non-neutral and"liquiditytrap"theory provide a theoretical guidance for implementing easing monetary policyin the crisis. The Fed's monetary policy in the Great Depression and the Bank ofJapan's quantitative easing monetary policy offer some experiences and lessons inpractice. In the U.S. financial crisis, because of the failure of conventional monetarypolicy, the Fed launches unconventional monetary policy, particularly, quantitativeeasing monetary policy. The quantitative easing monetary policy achieves itsobjective through interest rate commitment, asset re-balancing effect and the signalingeffect. In the international comparison, the Fed's quantitative easing pays moreattention to the recovery of non-bank credit market, which is more intensive andcovering larger scale. In a long run, the exit is inevitable. However facing with theuncertainty of economic growth in short term, the Fed is very likely to launch a newround of quantitative easing monetary policy.We can analyse the effects of the Fed's rescue with a comprehensive method ofrevenue, cost and spillover. The financial institutions and markets has been stablegradually, and the economy is recoverying. But the rescue has weakened the Fed'sindependence, brought the risk of inflation and depreciation of the U.S. dollar. Andthe rescue has also brought higher international commodity price, the impact ofinternational capital flow to emerging countries, challenges to monetary policy, andrisks of international trade and foreign exchange reserves. Rethinking about the rescue,we should conduct institutional reform in long term. Therefore, we suggestimplementing financial regulatory reform and giving central bank clearresponsibilities and corresponding tools in order to maintain financial stability moreeffectively.The Fed's financial crisis rescue has given many implications to China. Learningfrom the experience of the rescue, we can improve the lender of last resort mechanism and monetary policy, strengthen cooperation with other central banks and mitigatefinancial crisis effectively.