Typography

Remember all the hoopla about Japanese buying safety deposit boxes to hold cash in response to the Bank of Japan's decision to set negative rates? Here is the Wall Street Journal: Look no further than Japan’s hardware stores for a worrying new sign that consumers are hoarding cash--the opposite of what the Bank of Japan had hoped when it recently introduced negative interest rates. Signs are emerging of higher demand for safes—a place where the interest rate on cash is always zero, no matter what the central bank does. Well, three month's worth of data shows no evidence of unusual cash demand. As the chart below illustrates, the rate at which the Bank of Japan is printing the ¥10,000 note shows no discontinuity from its pre-negative rate rise. In fact, demand for the ¥10,000 is far below what it was in the 1990s, when interest rates were positive. I should remind readers that the Bank of Japan, like any central bank, doesn't determine the quantity of banknotes in circulati...

A common argument against the Fed raising interest rates next week is the asymmetry in risks that it faces. If it keeps rates low too long and sets off inflation, no problem: it can quickly hike rates a few times to bring prices back in line. However, if it boosts rates too early and an unintended slowdown sets in, the Fed won't have room to cut a few times in order to fix its mistake. That's because the Fed is at the zero lower bound , the edge of the world in monetary policy terms. To avoid this conundrum, the Fed should hold off as long as possible before raising, at least until it "sees the whites of inflation's eyes." As Paul Krugman points out , the asymmetry argument is only a recent one. Historically U.S. interest rates have hovered far above zero. If the Fed made a mistake, it didn't have to worry about falling off the edge of the world in order to fix the situation, it could simply ratchet rates down a few times. Rather than waiting till the last m...

Unfathomable Depths by Ibai Acevedo Denmark's Nationalbank and the Swiss National Bank are the world's most interesting central banks right now. As the two of them push their deposit rates to record low levels of -0.75%, they're testing the market's limit for bearing negative nominal interest rates. The ECB takes second prize as it has been maintaining a -0.2% deposit rate since September 2014. At some point, investors will flee deposits into 0%-yielding cash. This marks the effective lower bound to rates. Has mass paper storage begun? The last time I ran through the data was in my  monetary canaries post , which was inconclusive. Let's take a quick glance at the updated data. To gauge where we are relative to the effective lower bound, I'm most interested in the demand for large denomination notes, which bear the lowest costs of storage. Once a central bank reduces its deposit rate so deep into negative territory that the carrying cost of deposits exceeds the...

Central bankers are usually classified as either hawks or doves. This post is devoted to a third and rare breed; today's monetary policy canaries. Having taken their respective deposit rates to -0.75%, deeper into negative territory than any other bank in history (save the Swedes), the Swiss National Bank and Denmark's Nationalbank are the canaries of the central banking world, plumbing depths that everyone assumes to be dangerous. Other central bankers, in particular the ECB's Mario Draghi, will no doubt be watching the Swiss and Danes quite closely. The information these two nations generate as they go deep into the bowels of negative rate territory will give a good indication of the level to which the others can safely reduce their own rates before hitting their respective effective lower bounds. That there is an effective lower bound to rates stems from the fact that at some negative nominal interest rate, everyone will choose to convert deposits into cash, preferring...

The Swedes really don't like cash. First, consider that Sweden is the only country in the world that I'm aware of where reliance on paper money is in decline. Second, no country's central bank has produced a nominal deposit rate as negative as Sweden's, for as long. Yet even at -0.85% per year, Swedish banks who own those deposits haven't fled into 0% cash, providing some indication of the degree to which they hold banknotes in disdain. ABBA won't accept paper As the chart below shows, cash outstanding continues to grow in almost every country except Sweden. Japan and Denmark are the only countries that come close to pacing the Swedes, although both nations continue to show incremental growth in demand for banknotes. Even Kenya, where m-pesa has taken hold, shows strong cash demand. Sweden reached "peak-cash" somewhere between 2007 and 2008. The reason for this change of heart is public preferences, not government diktat. The monetary authorities can ...

Two things worth noting: As many of you know by now, the Swiss National Bank (SNB), Switzerland's central bank, just reduced the rate that banks earn on deposits held at the SNB by half a percentage point to -0.75% (from -0.25%). The SNB had only recently instituted a negative deposit rate, having reduced it to -0.25% from 0% this December. The SNB will also be targeting a 3-month LIBOR rate of -1.25% to -0.25%, down from the previous range of -0.75% to +0.25% The SNB issues the world's largest paper bearer note denomination, the hefty CHF 1000 note (pictured above). It's worth around US$1143. The first is significant because as yet, no central bank has ever brought rates this deep into negative territory. The ECB's current deposit rate is set at -0.2% while Denmark's central bank, the Danmarks Nationalbank (DNB), applied a negative deposit rate of -0.2% on deposits that banks placed with the DNB in 2012. Neither of these top the SNB's ultra-low -0.75% rate. T...