In the early history of the Federal Reserve, however, the discount window was the principal vehicle for adjusting the amount of reserves available to the banking system. Given the reluctance of banks to borrow from the discount window today, some new procedure for supplying credit through the window would need to be developed to allow it to become a more significant source of reserves.
In addition, even if we overcame the reluctance of banks to borrow, we would likely need an alternative to the current active administration of the window if we wanted to have a significantly higher amount of discount window borrowing. One possibility would be to auction discount-window credit. Doing so would, to a degree, shift the initiative on amounts to the Federal Reserve.