To further ease financial conditions, beyond what can be attained by reducing short-term interest rates, the Federal Reserve has taken additional steps to improve the functioning of credit markets and to increase the supply of credit to households and businesses – a policy strategy that I have called "credit easing."
In the first portion of my remarks, I will briefly outline the three principal approaches to easing credit that we have undertaken, over and above cutting the short-term interest rate, and assess their effectiveness to date.