The last three or four decades have seen a remarkable evolution in the institutions that comprise the modern monetary system. The financial crisis of 2007-2009 is a wakeup call that we need a similar evolution in the analytical apparatus and theories that we use to understand that system. Produced and sponsored by the Institute for New Economic Thinking, this course is an attempt to begin the process of new economic thinking by reviving and updating some forgotten traditions in monetary thought that have become newly relevant.

Economics of Money and Banking

Economics of Money and Banking

Instructor: Perry G Mehrling
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There are 13 modules in this course
The first two lectures paint a picture of the monetary system as the essential infrastructure of a decentralized market economy. The second lecture, "The Natural Hierarchy of Money", is a kind of high-level overview of the entire course, so don't expect to fully understand it until you look back after completing the rest of the course. Nevertheless it provides essential orientation for what comes after. Lectures notes for these and subsequent lectures may be found in the very first segment of this module.
What's included
12 videos2 readings
12 videos• Total 124 minutes
- The Big Picture• 19 minutes
- Prerequisites?• 7 minutes
- What is a Bank, a Shadow Bank, a Central Bank?• 12 minutes
- Central Themes• 13 minutes
- Reading: Allyn Young• 3 minutes
- FT: The Eurocrisis, Liquidity vs. Solvency• 10 minutes
- Hierarchy of Financial Instruments• 10 minutes
- Hierarchy of Financial Institutions• 7 minutes
- Dynamics of the Hierarchy• 6 minutes
- Discipline and Elasticity, Currency Principle and Banking Principle• 9 minutes
- Hierarchy of Market Makers• 9 minutes
- Managing the Hierarchy• 18 minutes
2 readings• Total 20 minutes
- Lecture Notes (for download)• 10 minutes
- Allyn Young• 10 minutes
The next two lectures are meant to introduce a key analytical tool, the balance sheet approach to monetary economics, that we will be using repeatedly throughout the course. As inspiration, first I provide a concrete example of how the approach works by "translating" the Allyn Young reading into the balance sheet language. I follow that with a more systematic introduction to this essential tool.
What's included
20 videos1 reading1 assignment
20 videos• Total 130 minutes
- FT: Quantitative Easing and the Fed• 8 minutes
- Allyn Young: Money and Economic Orthodoxy• 9 minutes
- National Banking System Before the Fed• 3 minutes
- Civil War Finance, Bonds, and Loans• 9 minutes
- Civil War Finance, Legal Tenders• 7 minutes
- National Banking System, Origins• 6 minutes
- National Banking System, Instability• 6 minutes
- Federal Reserve System, Plan• 7 minutes
- Federal Reserve System, Actual• 7 minutes
- FT: Dealer of Last Resort• 5 minutes
- Reading: Hyman Minsky• 3 minutes
- Sources and Uses Accounts• 7 minutes
- Payments: Money and Credit• 6 minutes
- Payments: Discipline and Elasticity• 4 minutes
- The Survival Constraint• 4 minutes
- Payment Example: Money and Credit• 10 minutes
- Flow of Funds Accounts• 10 minutes
- The Survival Constraint, Redux• 3 minutes
- Liquidity, Long and Short• 10 minutes
- Financial Fragility, Flows and Stocks• 6 minutes
1 reading• Total 10 minutes
- Hyman Minsky• 10 minutes
1 assignment• Total 30 minutes
- Introduction• 30 minutes
In the next four lectures, we build intuition by viewing banking as a payments system, in which every participant faces a daily settlement constraint (a survival constraint). From this point of view, the wholesale money market plays a key role by allowing banks to relax the discipline of a binding settlement constraint, delaying final payment by putting settlement off until a later date. The relative importance of the various money markets has changed since the 2008 crisis--Fed Funds is now less important--but the conceptual framework remains valid, indeed not only for dollar money markets but also for non-dollar money markets.
What's included
20 videos1 reading1 assignment
20 videos• Total 125 minutes
- FT: Martin Wolf on QE3• 3 minutes
- One Big Bank• 8 minutes
- Multiple Banks, A Challenge• 4 minutes
- Reading: Charles F. Dunbar• 2 minutes
- Correspondent Banking, Bilateral Balances• 10 minutes
- Correspondent Banking, System Network• 4 minutes
- Clearinghouse, Normal Operations• 8 minutes
- Clearinghouse, Private Lender of Last Resort• 11 minutes
- Central Bank Clearing• 5 minutes
- Central Bank Cooperation• 6 minutes
- FT: European Bank Deleveraging• 6 minutes
- What are Fed Funds?• 5 minutes
- Payment Settlement versus Required Reserves• 1 minute
- Payment Elasticity/Discipline, Public and Private• 9 minutes
- The Function of the Fed Funds Market• 9 minutes
- Payment versus Funding: An Example• 11 minutes
- Brokers versus Dealers• 2 minutes
- Payments Imbalances and the Fed Funds Rate• 7 minutes
- Secured versus Unsecured Interbank Credit• 5 minutes
- Required Reserves, Redux• 7 minutes
1 reading• Total 10 minutes
- Dunbar• 10 minutes
1 assignment• Total 30 minutes
- Banking as a Clearing System• 30 minutes
The next two lectures extend the payments system frame to non-banks by bringing in repo markets, and to the international monetary system by bringing in Eurodollar markets. Here, as in the previous two lectures, the emphasis is on settlement, and so implicitly on so-called "funding liquidity". The last three segments of the Eurodollar lecture, on the failure of two seemingly obvious arbitrage conditions, are meant to motivate the shift to market-making and "market liquidity" in the next module.
What's included
20 videos1 reading1 assignment
20 videos• Total 131 minutes
- FT: The Impact of QE3• 3 minutes
- Money Market Interest Rate Patterns• 4 minutes
- What is Repo?• 3 minutes
- Repo in Balance Sheets• 8 minutes
- Comparison with Fed Funds• 5 minutes
- Legal Construction of Repo• 10 minutes
- Security Dealers Balance Sheet• 11 minutes
- Repo, Modern Finance, and the Fed• 9 minutes
- Interest Rate Spreads: Before the Crisis• 6 minutes
- Interest Rate Spreads: After the Crisis• 8 minutes
- FT: Ring-fencing and the Volcker Rule• 10 minutes
- The Eurodollar Market in Crisis• 5 minutes
- What are Eurodollars?• 7 minutes
- Why is There a Eurodollar Market?• 5 minutes
- Eurodollar as Global Funding Market• 12 minutes
- Liquidity Challenge of Eurodollar Banks• 11 minutes
- FRA as Implicit Swap of IOUs• 5 minutes
- Forward Parity, Interest Rates, EH• 3 minutes
- Forward Parity, Exchange Rates, UIP• 6 minutes
- Forward Rates are NOT Expected Spot Rates• 3 minutes
1 reading• Total 10 minutes
- Bagehot• 10 minutes
1 assignment• Total 30 minutes
- Banking as a Clearing System, continued• 30 minutes
"Market liquidity" is supplied by dealers who stand ready to absorb temporary imbalances in supply and demand by taking the imbalance onto their own balance sheets, for a price. From this point of view, banks can be considered a special kind of dealer, since they absorb imbalances in payment flows. The first lecture is meant to build intuition by using our familiar balance sheet method to make sense of how this all worked in a system much simpler than our own. The second lecture introduces a formal model of the economics of the dealer function, which we will be using throughout the rest of the course.
What's included
16 videos1 reading1 assignment
16 videos• Total 114 minutes
- FT: Depreciation of Iran's Currency• 4 minutes
- Reading: John Hicks• 4 minutes
- Bagehot's World, Wholesale Money Market• 8 minutes
- Economizing on Notes: Deposits, Acceptances• 8 minutes
- Managing Cash Flow: Discount, Rediscount• 7 minutes
- Market Rate of Interest• 3 minutes
- Central Bank and Bank Rate• 8 minutes
- The Bagehot Rule, Origin of Monetary Policy• 5 minutes
- Limits on Central Banking: Internal vs. External Drain• 10 minutes
- FT: Asymmetric Credit Growth in Europe• 7 minutes
- Market Liquidity, Dealers, and Inventories• 7 minutes
- Two-Sided Dealer Basics• 7 minutes
- Economics of the Dealer Function: the Treynor Model• 12 minutes
- Leveraged Dealer Basics• 7 minutes
- Real World Dealers• 8 minutes
- Arbitrage and the Assumption of Perfect Liquidity• 10 minutes
1 reading• Total 10 minutes
- Hicks• 10 minutes
1 assignment• Total 30 minutes
- Banking as Market Making• 30 minutes
Here we adapt the Treynor model to banks, which we conceptualize as dealers in money, specifically term funding. Like Treynor's security dealers, banks supply market liquidity for a price. But sometimes, in a financial crisis, demand for market liquidity overwhelms supply, and that's where the central bank comes in, as dealer of last resort in money markets. And if the crisis is big enough, as 2007-2009, the central bank comes in as dealer of last resort in capital markets as well.
What's included
16 videos1 reading1 assignment
16 videos• Total 126 minutes
- FT: Money Market Mutual Funds• 7 minutes
- Banks as Money Dealers, a Puzzle• 4 minutes
- Security Dealers as Money Dealers, Matched and Speculative Book• 11 minutes
- Adapting Treynor to Liquidity Risk• 7 minutes
- Digression: Evolution of American Banking• 12 minutes
- The Fed in the Fed Funds Market• 13 minutes
- Return to the Initial Puzzle• 2 minutes
- FT: Citibank and the SIVs• 5 minutes
- The Art of Central Banking• 4 minutes
- Evolution of Monetary Policy: 1951-1987• 7 minutes
- The Taylor Rule: 1987-2007• 7 minutes
- Monetary Transmission Mechanism• 10 minutes
- Anatomy of a Normal Crisis• 8 minutes
- Anatomy of a Serious Crisis• 5 minutes
- Should the Fed Intervene or Not?• 9 minutes
- The Fed as Dealer of Last Resort: 2007-2009• 16 minutes
1 reading• Total 10 minutes
- Treynor• 10 minutes
1 assignment• Total 30 minutes
- Banking as Market Making, continued• 30 minutes
The first twelve lectures have introduced all of the main concepts of the course. The midterm exam gives you a chance to test whether you have mastered these concepts before extending them into new areas in the second part of the course. But before you try the exam, first use the review lecture, and the questions from students, to review the main concepts.
What's included
10 videos1 assignment
10 videos• Total 64 minutes
- FT: Trade Credit and the Eurocrisis• 6 minutes
- Inspiration: The Origin of the Fed• 4 minutes
- Central Bank Operations, Normal Times• 8 minutes
- Central Bank Operations, Crisis Times• 5 minutes
- Settlement Risk, Payments, and Market-making• 5 minutes
- Q: Standard and Subordinate Coin• 3 minutes
- Q: War Finance as Financial Crisis• 4 minutes
- Q: Forward Parity• 7 minutes
- Q: Payments, CHIPS and Fedwire• 12 minutes
- Q: Fed Balance Sheet Operations• 10 minutes
1 assignment• Total 30 minutes
- Midterm• 30 minutes
The next four lectures extend the "money view" perspective to the larger world of multiple national monies by thinking about the international monetary system as a payment system, and by thinking of banks as market makers in foreign exchange. The first lecture is introductory and conceptual, while the second builds intuition by "translating" Mundell's account of the development of the international monetary system into money view language (similar to what we did at the beginning of the course for Allyn Young's account of the development of the US monetary system).
What's included
18 videos1 reading1 assignment
18 videos• Total 136 minutes
- FT: Autonomy of Bank of Japan• 2 minutes
- Key Currencies as a Hierarchical System• 9 minutes
- What is Money? Chartalism versus Metallism• 9 minutes
- Chartalism as a Theory of Money• 2 minutes
- Quantity Theory of Money• 5 minutes
- Purchasing Power Parity• 3 minutes
- Metallism as a theory of money• 5 minutes
- A Money View of International Payments, FX Dealers• 12 minutes
- Chartallism, Metallism, and the Money View Compared• 4 minutes
- Private and Public Money: A Hybrid System• 7 minutes
- Hybridity in FX Market-making• 6 minutes
- FT: Costs of Japan's Monetary Policy• 3 minutes
- Reading: Robert Mundell• 10 minutes
- Act 1 (1900-1933): Confrontation of the Fed with the Gold Standard• 12 minutes
- Act 2 (1934-1971): Contradiction Between Keynesian National Management and the Bretton Woods Fixed Rate System• 14 minutes
- The Dollar System• 7 minutes
- Act 3 (1972-1999): Flexible exchange, Learning from Experience• 8 minutes
- Act 4: Global Financial Crisis, Limits of Central Bank Cooperation• 18 minutes
1 reading• Total 10 minutes
- Mundell• 10 minutes
1 assignment• Total 30 minutes
- International Money and Banking• 30 minutes
The next two lectures use the Treynor model to understand how exchange rates are determined in dealer markets. In the second, we confront directly the puzzle we observed earlier in the course, namely why uncovered interest parity (UIP) fails to hold in real world markets.
What's included
15 videos1 reading1 assignment
15 videos• Total 126 minutes
- FT: European Money Market Funds Shifting to Asia and European Core Countries• 3 minutes
- International Transactions under the Gold Standard• 12 minutes
- Dealer Model for Foreign Exchange• 10 minutes
- Central Banking, Defense of Domestic Exchange• 9 minutes
- Bank of England, Defense Against External Drain• 12 minutes
- Toward a Theory of Exchange, Without the Gold Standard• 10 minutes
- FT: High Frequency Trading• 5 minutes
- Uncovered Interest Parity (UIP) and the Expectations Hypothesis of the Term Structure (EH)• 2 minutes
- FX Dealers Under the Gold Standard, Redux• 5 minutes
- Private FX Dealing System• 11 minutes
- Economics of the Dealer Function, Speculative Dealer• 6 minutes
- Economics of the Dealer Function, Matched-book Dealer• 6 minutes
- Digression: Why do UIP and EH Fail?• 10 minutes
- Central Bank as FX Dealer of Last Resort• 16 minutes
- Reading: McCauley on Internationalization of Renminbi• 10 minutes
1 reading• Total 10 minutes
- Kindleberger• 10 minutes
1 assignment• Total 30 minutes
- International Money and Banking, continued• 30 minutes
The next four lectures extend the money view to the larger financial world of capital markets, where the price of risk is determined in dealer markets for swaps of various kinds. The first lecture is a kind of conceptual introduction, while the second translates the standard finance account of forwards and futures into money view terms, as key building block for what comes after.
What's included
19 videos1 reading1 assignment
19 videos• Total 135 minutes
- FT: Shadow Banking• 4 minutes
- Bagehot's World: Separation of Money Markets and Capital Markets• 9 minutes
- The New World: Integration of Money Markets and Capital Markets• 11 minutes
- Funding Liquidity Versus Market Liquidity• 3 minutes
- Digression: Schumpeter on Banking and Economic Development• 4 minutes
- Payment Versus Funding• 6 minutes
- Reading: Gurley and Shaw• 2 minutes
- Financial Evolution: Indirect Finance to Direct Finance• 13 minutes
- Banking Evolution: Loan-based Credit to Market-based Credit• 11 minutes
- Preview: Central Banking and Shadow Banking• 8 minutes
- FT: Argentina in Court to Fight Debt Ruling• 5 minutes
- Banking as Advance Clearing• 6 minutes
- Forwards versus Futures• 14 minutes
- Forward Contracts, Fluctuations in Value and Final Cash Flow• 14 minutes
- Futures Contracts, Fluctuations in Value and Daily Cash Flows• 6 minutes
- Cash and Carry Arbitrage, Defined• 7 minutes
- Cash and Carry Arbitrage, Explained as Liquidity Risk• 5 minutes
- Cash and Carry Arbitrage, Explained as Counterparty Risk• 3 minutes
- Cash and Carry Arbitrage, as a Natural Banking Business• 3 minutes
1 reading• Total 10 minutes
- Gurley and Shaw• 10 minutes
1 assignment• Total 30 minutes
- Banking as Advance Clearing• 30 minutes
In the modern economy, the price of risk is determined in swap markets that distinguish specific forms of risk, most importantly interest rate swaps and credit default swaps. The Treynor model can be adapted to understand how the price of risk is formed in dealer markets.
What's included
19 videos1 reading1 assignment
19 videos• Total 131 minutes
- FT: Sovereign Debt Crises• 3 minutes
- Reading: FOMC Report (1952)• 8 minutes
- Treasury-swap Spread, a Puzzle• 11 minutes
- What is a Swap?• 3 minutes
- Why swap? An Example from Stigum• 11 minutes
- Market Making in Swaps• 9 minutes
- Money Market Swaps, Example• 6 minutes
- Life in Arbitrage Land• 5 minutes
- Treasury-swap Spread, Liquidity Risk or Counterparty Risk?• 7 minutes
- FT: Internationalization of the Euro• 5 minutes
- Credit Indices• 4 minutes
- Fischer Black (1970), Risk-free Security• 2 minutes
- What is a Credit Default Swap (CDS)?• 6 minutes
- Corporate Bonds• 4 minutes
- CDS Pricing• 11 minutes
- Market Making in CDS• 4 minutes
- Example: Negative Basis Trade and Liquidity Risk• 10 minutes
- Example: Private backstop of Marketmaking in CDS• 15 minutes
- Example: Synthetic CDO as Collateral Prepayment• 7 minutes
1 reading• Total 10 minutes
- FOMC• 10 minutes
1 assignment• Total 30 minutes
- Banking as Advance Clearing, continued• 30 minutes
In this final module, we bring the entire course together. These two lectures build on everything that came before, and show how all the pieces fit together into a unified whole. Specifically, the first lecture uses the conceptual apparatus of the money view to make sense of shadow banking as the quintessential form of banking for the modern financially globalized world. And the second lecture shows how the conceptual apparatus of the money view fits with standard economics view and finance view, by drawing attention to dimensions of the world from which the standard views abstract.
What's included
17 videos1 reading1 assignment
17 videos• Total 134 minutes
- FT: Regulation of Shadow Banking• 4 minutes
- Shadow Banking vs Traditional Banking• 7 minutes
- Liquidity and Solvency Backstops• 7 minutes
- Global Dimension• 5 minutes
- Evolution of Modern Finance• 3 minutes
- What is Shadow Banking?• 12 minutes
- Backstopping the Market Makers• 8 minutes
- Regulation of Systemic Risk• 6 minutes
- Regulation of Collateral and Payment Flows• 10 minutes
- Private Backstop and Public• 8 minutes
- FT: Future of Banking• 5 minutes
- Three World Views• 15 minutes
- Economics View: Commodity Exchange• 9 minutes
- Finance View: Risk• 16 minutes
- The Education of Fischer Black• 5 minutes
- Steps From the Finance View to the Money View• 8 minutes
- A Money View of Economics and Finance• 5 minutes
1 reading• Total 10 minutes
- Shadow Banking• 10 minutes
1 assignment• Total 30 minutes
- Money in the Real World• 30 minutes
The previous module operated in effect as a review of the entire course, so if you were able to make sense of those lectures, you are ready for the final. But maybe you first want to have a look back at the second lecture, "The Natural Hierarchy of Money", for a high-level summary of the essential concepts of the money view. For almost everybody, the money view is a new and unfamiliar way of thinking about the world, and it takes a while to get used to it. The purpose of this course is to plant the seed, by demonstrating the value of this way of thinking for making sense of real world problems. Once you are done with the final exam, the real work begins, of using the money view to make sense of whatever real world problems confront you in your own daily life.
What's included
1 assignment
1 assignment• Total 30 minutes
- Final Exam• 30 minutes
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Reviewed on Dec 5, 2020
Very well explained and easy to follow for a non-finance/economics person. If you want to have a deeper understanding of the Financial Times or The Economist, I highly recommend this course.
Reviewed on Oct 12, 2019
Fantastic content, it explains how banks work behind the scenes and many intricacies of the current financial system. Super suggested even to those who don't have a financial background.
Reviewed on Jun 26, 2020
Extremely helpful is understanding the money view of banking system. One of the best courses. A small suggestion - it can be interspersed with more examples especially from the emerging markets.
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