scholarly journals The Costs of Macroprudential Deleveraging in a Liquidity Trap

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (89) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiaqian Chen ◽  
Daria Finocchiaro ◽  
Jesper Lindé ◽  
Karl Walentin

We examine the effects of various borrower-based macroprudential tools in a New Keynesian environment where both real and nominal interest rates are low. Our model features long-term debt, housing transaction costs and a zero-lower bound constraint on policy rates. We find that the long-term costs, in terms of forgone consumption, of all the macroprudential tools we consider are moderate. Even so, the short-term costs differ dramatically between alternative tools. Specifically, a loan-to-value tightening is more than twice as contractionary compared to loan-to-income tightening when debt is high and monetary policy cannot accommodate.

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 301-334 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Sutch

John Maynard Keynes’s analysis of the Great Depression has strong parallels to recent theorizing about the post-2008 Great Recession. There are also remarkable similarities between the two historical episodes: the collapse of demand for new fixed investment, the role of the zero lower bound liquidity trap in hampering conventional monetary policy, the multi-year period of near-zero short-term rates, and the protracted period of subnormal prosperity. A major difference between then and now is that monetary authorities in the recent situation actively pursued an unconventional policy with massive purchases of long-term securities. Keynes couldn’t convince authorities of his era to pursue such a plan, but it was precisely the monetary policy he advocated for a depressed economy stuck at the zero lower bound of nominal interest rates.


2016 ◽  
Vol 106 (5) ◽  
pp. 39-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stanley Fischer

Much has happened in the world of central banking in the past decade. In this paper, I focus on three issues associated with the zero lower bound (ZLB) on short-term nominal interest rates and the nexus between monetary policy and financial stability: 1) whether we are moving toward a permanently lower long-run equilibrium real interest rate; 2) what steps can be taken to mitigate the constraints imposed by the ZLB; and 3) whether and how financial stability considerations should be incorporated in the conduct of monetary policy. These important topics deserve the attention of both academic and government professionals.


2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Tillmann

AbstractCentral banks face uncertainty about the true location of the effective lower bound (ELB) on nominal interest rates. We model optimal discretionary monetary policy during a liquidity trap when the central bank designs policy that is robust with respect to the location of the ELB. If the central bank fears the worst-case location of the ELB, monetary conditions will be more expansionary in the period before the liquidity trap.


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-200
Author(s):  
Olivia Bullio Mattos ◽  
Felipe Da Roz ◽  
Fernanda Oliveira Ultremare ◽  
Guilherme Santos Mello

This article discusses ‘unconventional’ monetary policy after the 2008 crisis. The focus is the original theoretical basis for such policy and possible Keynesian readings and criticisms. Drawing inspiration mainly from Keynes (1930; 1936) and Minsky (1975), the paper seeks to explain why ultra-low/negative interest rates neither caused ‘rentiers’ to die, nor achieved full employment. The main hypothesis goes in the direction pointed to by Keynes: the problem is the low marginal efficiency of capital, the liquidity trap, and the lack of active government fiscal policy, which should be used in conjunction with monetary policy that maintains low long-term interest rates in order to spur investment. Monetary policy and very low/negative interest rates seem insufficient to overcome low growth. They are also incapable, at least in the short term, of promoting euthanasia of the rentiers as current monetary policy allows financial institutions to benefit from the capital gains it spurs.


Equilibrium ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 751 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dominika Brózda

The experience of Japan from the 90s of the twentieth century and the recent global financial crisis has shown that the zero lower bound problem has ceased to be a theoretical curiosity and became the subject of intense scientific discussion. This issue is closely linked with John Maynard Keynes’s liquidity trap. The phenomenon of the zero lower bound is very controversial. Not all economists agree that it may restrict the effectiveness of the central bank’s actions. The aim of the article is to present the views of economists on this transmission mechanism of monetary policy under the zero lower bound. The paper also attempts to evaluate the effectiveness of the Federal Reserve System’s monetary policy at zero nominal interest rates.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Sutch

John Maynard Keynes’s analysis of the Great Depression has strong parallels to recent theorizing about the post-2008 Great Recession. There are also remarkable similarities between the two historical episodes: the collapse of demand for new fixed investment, the role of the zero-lower-bound liquidity trap in hampering conventional monetary policy, the multi-year period of near-zero short-term rates, and the protracted period of subnormal prosperity. A major difference between then and now that monetary authorities in the recent situation actively pursued an unconventional policy with massive purchases of long-term securities. Keynes couldn’t convince authorities of his era to pursue such a plan, but it was precisely the monetary policy he advocated for a depressed economy stuck at the zero lower bound of nominal interest rates.


2014 ◽  
Vol 104 (10) ◽  
pp. 3154-3185 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric T. Swanson ◽  
John C. Williams

According to standard macroeconomic models, the zero lower bound greatly reduces the effectiveness of monetary policy and increases the efficacy of fiscal policy. However, private-sector decisions depend on the entire path of expected future short-term interest rates, not just the current short-term rate. Put differently, longer-term yields matter. We show how to measure the zero bound's effects on yields of any maturity. Indeed, 1- and 2-year Treasury yields were surprisingly unconstrained throughout 2008 to 2010, suggesting that monetary and fiscal policy were about as effective as usual during this period. Only beginning in late 2011 did these yields become more constrained. (JEL E43, E52, E62)


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 310-350 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierpaolo Benigno ◽  
Gauti B. Eggertsson ◽  
Federica Romei

This paper proposes a postcrisis New Keynesian model that incorporates agent heterogeneity in borrowing and lending with a minimum set of assumptions. Unlike the standard framework, this model makes the natural rate of interest endogenous and dependent on macroeconomic policy. The main application is to study optimal monetary policy at the zero lower bound (ZLB). Such policy succeeds in raising the natural rate of interest by creating an environment that speeds up deleveraging and thus endogenously shortens the crisis and the duration of binding ZLB. Inflation should be front-loaded and should overshoot its long-term target during the ZLB episode. (JEL E12, E31, E32, E43, E52)


2006 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mauro Boianovsky ◽  
Hans-Michael Trautwein

The New Neoclassical Synthesis that Michael Woodford puts forward in his Interest and Prices (2003) is primarily a synthesis of New Classical and New Keynesian ideas. Yet Woodford presents it as an encompassing approach that goes much further back in time to integrate the pre-Keynesian macroeconomics of Knut Wickseil and his followers. Starting with the title, the book contains many references to Geldzins und Güterpreise (1898), Wicksell's landmark contribution to monetary theory which was translated as Interest and Prices in 1936. Woodford relates his concept of a “monetary policy without money” to Wicksell's concept of the pure credit system and to Wicksell's proposal to eliminate inflation by adjusting nominal interest rates to changes in the price level—an idea that has much in common with modern policy rules à la Taylor. He presents the core model of the new synthesis (in shorthand: IS + AS + Taylor rule) as a “neo-Wicksellian framework” that serves to analyze the dynamics of interest-rate gaps and output gaps (2003, chapter 4). Referring to the Wicksellians of the 1920s and 1930s (primarily Erik Lindahl, Gunnar Myrdal, and Friedrich A. Hayek), Woodford grounds his advocacy of rules to fight inflation on the potential non-neutrality of monetary policy: “[I]t is because instability of the general level of prices causes substantial real distortions—leading to inefficient variation both in aggregate employment and output and in the sectoral composition of economic activity—that price stability is important” (2003, p. 5). He thus sees his analysis of interest-rate and output gaps as “an attempt to resurrect a view” that the old Wicksellians had developed in their analyses of cumulative processes.


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