By Dan Kervick
Alan Blinder, writing in the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, expresses enthusiasm about some recent hints at a possible change in the Fed’s policy on interest paid on excess reserves. The hints were contained in the minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee’s last policy meeting, which included a passage indicating that most participants in the meeting “thought that a reduction by the Board of Governors in the interest rate paid on excess reserves could be worth considering at some stage.”
Blinder has been a strong proponent of changing the current policy, so he thinks the hinted changes are of the utmost importance. “As perhaps the longest-running promoter of reducing the interest paid on excess reserves, even turning the rate negative,” he says, “I can assure you that those buried words were momentous.”
