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Intermediaries, Banks

financial intermediaries - institutions that use funds from ppl to buy stocks, make loans  

  • liabilities - amount owed to ppl/firms that gave the intermediaries their funds
  • assets - stocks/bonds owned, loans made
  • banks - uses money as liabilities
    • keep some received funds as reserves
    • uses rest to make loans, purchase bonds
    • reserve ratio - fraction of deposits that banks must keep as reserves (or else bank will fail)
  • banks runs - situation where bad loans, declining consumer confidence exceeds the reserve >> bank starts failing
    • prevented by gov't insuring each account up to $100,000

bond market - exchange between ppl diversifying their money-bond allocations  

  • want to increase proportion of money >> sell bonds
  • want to increase proportion of bonds >> buy bonds
  • at equilibrium, Bs = Bd as w/ Ms = Md

open-market operations - controls money supply by buying/selling bonds  

  • operated by central banks
  • wants to increase money >> creates money to buy up bonds >> expansionary open-market operation
    • increases central bank's assets through more bonds, increases liabilitites by increasing money circulation
  • wants to decrease money >> sells bonds >> takes money received from sale of bonds, removes them from circulation >> contractionary open-market operation
    • reduced bonds >> reduced assets, reduced money in circulation >> reduced liabilities

Treasury bills (T-bills) - promises payment of a certain amount within a year  

  • closer the price of bill to final payment >> lower the interest rate
  • i = (return - price) / price
  • price = return / (1+i)
    • increase in interest >> price of bonds decrease
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