During the Great Recession, many people feared that the Fed’s quantitative easing would trigger high inflation, or even hyperinflation. As we know, it didn’t happen. Why? Well, the main reason is that the Fed created money – that’s true – but in the form of bank reserves. And this is a very specific medium of exchange that does not enter the real economy like cash, but stays within the interbank market. You see, bank reserves are a special kind of money used only between commercial banks, the central bank and between commercial banks themselves.
So, larger supply of reserves does not automatically translate into higher prices.
This can happen only if these additional reserves motivate commercial banks to expand their lending. Investors should remember that in the contemporary banking model based on the fractional reserve banking, the bank deposits account for the majority of the money supply. And when the bank deposits are created? They are created whenever banks grant…
