Question

Suppose all of the banks in the Federal Reserve System have $100 billion in transactions accounts, the required reserve ratio is 0.25, and there are no excess reserves in the system. If the required reserve ratio is changed to 0.20, the total lending capacity of the system is increased by

Answer 1

Answer:

$25 billion

Explanation:

The difference between a 0.25 reserve ration and a 0.20 reserve ratio is 0.05, which represents $5 billion in available money (= 0.05 x $100 billion).

If the total bank reserves is $100 billion, and the reserve ratio is 0.20, the money multiplier = 1 / 0.20 = 5.

If the banks have $5 billion available for loans and the new money multiplier = 5, then the lending capacity of the banking system will increase by $25 billion (= $5 billion available x money multiplier).