This paper examines the …nancial and real e¤ects of excess reserves in a New Keynesian Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) model with monopoly banking, credit market imperfections and a cost channel. The model explicitly accounts for the fact that banks hold excess reserves and they incur costs in holding these assets. Simulations of a shock to required reserves show that although raising reserve requirements is successful in sterilizing excess reserves, it creates a procyclical e¤ect for real economic activity. This result implies that …nancial stability may come at a cost of macroeconomic stability. The …ndings also indicate that using an augmented Taylor rule in which the policy interest rate is adjusted in response to changes in excess reserves reduces volatility in output and in ‡ation but increases ‡uctuations in …nancial variables. To the contrary, using a countercyclical reserve requirement rule helps to mitigate ‡uctuations in excess reserves, but increases volatility in real variables.
JEL Classi…cation Numbers: E43, E52, E58