Fig. [ ]. Source: Smiley .
The timing of this spike does not appear to have been accidental because
in 1927 the Federal Reserve embarked on another round of monetary
easing, after it had tightened its stance somewhat in [ ]. In
February 1927, the Federal Reserve reduced discount rates and conducted
large security purchases. It raised the discount rate back to 5% in
three steps in the first half of 1928 but this does not seem to have
been sufficient to quell the credit boom. As Table [ ] demonstrates,
while bond issuing at NYSE fell after 1927, its decline was offset by a
rapid increase in new corporate stock issues. The data from Table [
] on total corporate bond issuance suggest that the overall decline in
bond issuance in the US in 1928-29 was much smaller than for NYSE.