Financial Frictions, Liquidity Traps, and Monetary Policy

Financial Frictions, Liquidity Traps, and Monetary Policy
Author: Tiantian Dai
Publisher:
Total Pages: 50
Release: 2018
Genre:
ISBN:

To better understand liquidity traps, we explicitly model open market operations and standing facilities. With financial frictions, the model is consistent with the observed liquidity traps, and the zero nominal interest rate is the worst steady-state policy. We characterize dynamic exit strategies and show novel implications on monetary policy in normal times. The central bank interventions not just swap currency for bonds, but also interact with financial frictions and create differential effects on borrowers and lenders. A lower nominal rate implies higher total liquidity but more misallocation. Policies that ignore financial frictions can lead to liquidity traps endogenously over time.

Liquidity Trap and Excessive Leverage

Liquidity Trap and Excessive Leverage
Author: Mr.Anton Korinek
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 49
Release: 2014-07-21
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1498370942

We investigate the role of macroprudential policies in mitigating liquidity traps driven by deleveraging, using a simple Keynesian model. When constrained agents engage in deleveraging, the interest rate needs to fall to induce unconstrained agents to pick up the decline in aggregate demand. However, if the fall in the interest rate is limited by the zero lower bound, aggregate demand is insufficient and the economy enters a liquidity trap. In such an environment, agents' exante leverage and insurance decisions are associated with aggregate demand externalities. The competitive equilibrium allocation is constrained inefficient. Welfare can be improved by ex-ante macroprudential policies such as debt limits and mandatory insurance requirements. The size of the required intervention depends on the differences in marginal propensity to consume between borrowers and lenders during the deleveraging episode. In our model, contractionary monetary policy is inferior to macroprudential policy in addressing excessive leverage, and it can even have the unintended consequence of increasing leverage.

Liquidity Trap and Excessive Leverage

Liquidity Trap and Excessive Leverage
Author: Mr.Anton Korinek
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 49
Release: 2014-07-21
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1498356397

We investigate the role of macroprudential policies in mitigating liquidity traps driven by deleveraging, using a simple Keynesian model. When constrained agents engage in deleveraging, the interest rate needs to fall to induce unconstrained agents to pick up the decline in aggregate demand. However, if the fall in the interest rate is limited by the zero lower bound, aggregate demand is insufficient and the economy enters a liquidity trap. In such an environment, agents' exante leverage and insurance decisions are associated with aggregate demand externalities. The competitive equilibrium allocation is constrained inefficient. Welfare can be improved by ex-ante macroprudential policies such as debt limits and mandatory insurance requirements. The size of the required intervention depends on the differences in marginal propensity to consume between borrowers and lenders during the deleveraging episode. In our model, contractionary monetary policy is inferior to macroprudential policy in addressing excessive leverage, and it can even have the unintended consequence of increasing leverage.

Liquidity Traps

Liquidity Traps
Author: Willem H. Buiter
Publisher:
Total Pages: 84
Release: 1999
Genre: Deflation (Finance)
ISBN:

International Capital Flows

International Capital Flows
Author: Martin Feldstein
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 500
Release: 2007-12-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0226241807

Recent changes in technology, along with the opening up of many regions previously closed to investment, have led to explosive growth in the international movement of capital. Flows from foreign direct investment and debt and equity financing can bring countries substantial gains by augmenting local savings and by improving technology and incentives. Investing companies acquire market access, lower cost inputs, and opportunities for profitable introductions of production methods in the countries where they invest. But, as was underscored recently by the economic and financial crises in several Asian countries, capital flows can also bring risks. Although there is no simple explanation of the currency crisis in Asia, it is clear that fixed exchange rates and chronic deficits increased the likelihood of a breakdown. Similarly, during the 1970s, the United States and other industrial countries loaned OPEC surpluses to borrowers in Latin America. But when the U.S. Federal Reserve raised interest rates to control soaring inflation, the result was a widespread debt moratorium in Latin America as many countries throughout the region struggled to pay the high interest on their foreign loans. International Capital Flows contains recent work by eminent scholars and practitioners on the experience of capital flows to Latin America, Asia, and eastern Europe. These papers discuss the role of banks, equity markets, and foreign direct investment in international capital flows, and the risks that investors and others face with these transactions. By focusing on capital flows' productivity and determinants, and the policy issues they raise, this collection is a valuable resource for economists, policymakers, and financial market participants.

Hysteresis and Business Cycles

Hysteresis and Business Cycles
Author: Ms.Valerie Cerra
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 50
Release: 2020-05-29
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1513536990

Traditionally, economic growth and business cycles have been treated independently. However, the dependence of GDP levels on its history of shocks, what economists refer to as “hysteresis,” argues for unifying the analysis of growth and cycles. In this paper, we review the recent empirical and theoretical literature that motivate this paradigm shift. The renewed interest in hysteresis has been sparked by the persistence of the Global Financial Crisis and fears of a slow recovery from the Covid-19 crisis. The findings of the recent literature have far-reaching conceptual and policy implications. In recessions, monetary and fiscal policies need to be more active to avoid the permanent scars of a downturn. And in good times, running a high-pressure economy could have permanent positive effects.

Oil Shocks and the Zero Bound on Nominal Interest Rates

Oil Shocks and the Zero Bound on Nominal Interest Rates
Author: Martin Bodenstein
Publisher: DIANE Publishing
Total Pages: 47
Release: 2011-04
Genre: Reference
ISBN: 1437980503

Beginning in 2009, in many advanced economies, policy rates reached their zero lower bound (ZLB). Almost at the same time, oil prices started rising again. The authors analyze how the ZLB affects the propagation of oil shocks. As these shocks move inflation and output in opposite directions, their effects on economic activity are cushioned when monetary policy is constrained. The burst of inflation from an oil price increase lowers real interest rates at the ZLB and stimulates theinterest-sensitive component of GDP, offsetting the usual contractionary effects. In fact, if the increase in oil prices is gradual, the persistent rise in inflation can cause a GDP expansion. Illus. This is a print on demand report.