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Economic Commentary

Commercial Bank Holdings of Treasury Debt

Even conservative estimates of future federal government deficits suggest that the U.S. Treasury’s borrowing needs will continue to be large in the months ahead. The impact of the increase in Treasury debt resulting from large, persistent deficits on financial market rates and flows will depend on the strength of the demands made by certain classes of investors for such securities. The absorption of Treasury debt by commercial banks is of particular concern, because traditionally banks have held more Treasuries than any private domestic sector except households.

The views authors express in Economic Commentary are theirs and not necessarily those of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland or the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. The series editor is Tasia Hane. This paper and its data are subject to revision; please visit clevelandfed.org for updates.

Suggested Citation

Whalen, Gary. 1984. “Commercial Bank Holdings of Treasury Debt.” Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Economic Commentary 1/16/1984.

This work by Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International