Bernanke, Ben

The rationale for not going all the way to zero has been that we want the short-term money markets, like the federal funds market, to continue to function in a reasonable way because if rates go to zero there will be no incentive for buying and selling federal funds, overnight money in the banking system. And if that market shuts down, if people don't operate in that market, it'll be more difficult to manage short-term interest rates when the Federal Reserve begins to tighten policy at some point in the future.

So there's really a technical reason having to do with market function that has motivated the 25-basis-point interest on reserves.

That being said, it would have a bit of effect on monetary policy conditions, and we would certainly -- we're certainly considering that as one option.

From the Q&A session