No surprise, then, that the determination of the proper level of the real federal funds rate continues to be subject to considerable debate. The Fed, of course, is not the only monetary policy maker of consequence in a globally integrated economy. Our counterparts, particularly among our major trading partners, bring  11  6  See Munger (2003) in footnote 9.
More fundamentally, however, a central counterparty’s ability to manage risk is determined by its ability to accurately value the contracts it clears on a frequent and possibly real-time basis and to rapidly replace open positions at or near current prices in the event that a clearing member defaults.