The central banks' non-standard monetary policy: quantitative easing

The thesis deals with non-standard monetary policies of three central banks throughout the global financial crisis. The reason for using non-standard measures was also liquidity trap when monetary policy becomes ineffective. An important milestone was collapse of investment bank Lehman Brothers in September 2008. The central banks carried out some non-standard measures before the collapse such as the emergence of new or expanding existing facilities. However, after the collapse there was panic at the financial and capital markets and market interest rate spreads rose. Central banks were forced to respond to expanding its balance sheet and reducing the monetary policy rate to zero. The main reason for increasing total assets was securities purchases by central banks. The measure, which is expanding the balance sheet is called quantitative easing. In the thesis I try to describe and compare the non-standard measures (with a focus on quantitative easing) taken by the three central banks (Bank of England, the Fed and the ECB) and answer the question whether the measures are effective and whether they can replace the standard monetary policy.