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It's no secret that the new Fed chair, Kevin Warsh, prefers the Federal Reserve to have a smaller balance sheet, perhaps a much, much smaller balance sheet. The consequences of this range from the mundane to the profound, but what is without question is that in order to reduce the Fed's balance sheet, there need to be additional tools to reduce reserve demand from the banking system.

Stanford Professor Darrell Duffie returns to Monetary Matters to explain that to safely reduce Fed assets, policymakers must first address the liability side of the ledger by drastically lowering commercial banks' high demand for reserve balances. If the Fed simply sells off assets without adjusting this structural demand, it risks losing control of interest rates and sparking extreme volatility in repo funding markets, similar to the disruptions witnessed in September 2019. To prevent such a liquidity crisis, Duffie outlines four crucial policy tools from his latest research: utilizing temporary open market operations, easing stringent liquidity regulations, implementing software-driven liquidity savings mechanisms, and tiering the interest rates paid on excess reserves. While some of these proposed banking plumbing changes are already successfully utilized by other global central banks, their adoption remains highly debated within the Federal Reserve. Ultimately, integrating these innovative monetary tools could provide the necessary framework for the Fed to achieve a vastly smaller footprint in the financial markets over the coming decade. Recorded June 30, 2026.

Darrell Duffie website: https://www.darrellduffie.com/

Pieces discussed:

“The Payment System Puts a Floor on the Fed’s Balance Sheet,” Spring 2026:

https://www.darrellduffie.com/uploads/1/4/8/0/148007615/duffie_bpea_payments.pdf

“An Efficient Liquidity Savings Mechanism,” June 3, 2026: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6869662&__cf_chl_f_tk=0_Jrq4.M1jw0cY9jkTQugQHw531LRaR5X__LMj_0U.Q-1783272074-1.0.1.1-6nR7OVxYRqdVjoMHJTtUJ6A5vRg.ls3f_TfIWkVJqoo