Liquidity traps : an interest-rate-based exit strategy

Liquidity traps : an interest-rate-based exit strategy
Author: Stephanie Schmitt-Grohé
Publisher:
Total Pages: 14
Release: 2010
Genre: Economics
ISBN:

This paper analyzes a potential strategy for escaping liquidity traps. The strategy is based on an augmented Taylor-type interest-rate feedback rule and differs from usual specifications in that when inflation falls below a threshold, the central bank temporarily deviates from the traditional Taylor rule by following a deterministic path for the nominal interest rate. This path reaches the intended target for this policy instrument in finite time. The policy we study is designed to raise inflationary expectations over time while at the same time maintaining all of the desirable local properties of the Taylor principle in a neighborhood of the intended inflation target. Importantly, the effectiveness of the potential exit strategy studied in this paper does not rely on the existence of an accompanying fiscalist (or non-Ricardian) fiscal stance.

Escaping from a Liquidity Trap and Deflation

Escaping from a Liquidity Trap and Deflation
Author: Lars E. O. Svensson
Publisher:
Total Pages: 40
Release: 2003
Genre: Deflation (Finance)
ISBN:

"Existing proposals to escape from a liquidity trap and deflation, including my Foolproof Way,' are discussed in the light of the optimal way to escape. The optimal way involves three elements: (1) an explicit central-bank commitment to a higher future price level; (2) a concrete action that demonstrates the central bank's commitment, induces expectations of a higher future price level and jump-starts the economy; and (3) an exit strategy that specifies when and how to get back to normal. A currency depreciation is a direct consequence of expectations of a higher future price level and hence an excellent indicator of those expectations. Furthermore, an intentional currency depreciation and a crawling peg, as in the Foolproof Way, can implement the optimal way and, in particular, induce the desired expectations of a higher future price level. I conclude that the Foolproof Way is likely to work well for Japan, which is in a liquidity trap now, as well as for the euro area and the United States, in case either would fall into a liquidity trap in the future"--NBER website

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 Traps

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

Central Bank Exit Strategies Domestic Transmission and International Spillovers

Central Bank Exit Strategies Domestic Transmission and International Spillovers
Author: Christopher J. Erceg
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 57
Release: 2024-03-29
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN:

We study alternative approaches to the withdrawal of prolonged unconventional monetary stimulus (“exit strategies”) by central banks in large, advanced economies. We first show empirically that large-scale asset purchases affect the exchange rate and domestic and foreign term premiums more strongly than conventional short-term policy rate changes when normalizing by the effects on domestic GDP. We then build a two-country New Keynesian model that features segmented bond markets, cognitive discounting and strategic complementarities in price setting that is consistent with these findings. The model implies that quantitative easing (QE) is the only effective way to provide monetary stimulus when policy rates are persistently constrained by the effective lower bound, and that QE is likely to have larger domestic output effects than quantitative tightening (QT). We demonstrate that “exit strategies” by large advanced economies that rely heavily on QT can trigger sizeable inflation-output tradeoffs in foreign recipient economies through the exchange rate and term premium channels. We also show that these tradeoffs are likely to be stronger in emerging market economies, especially those with fixed exchange rates.

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.

Escape from the Central Bank Trap

Escape from the Central Bank Trap
Author: Daniel Lacalle
Publisher: Business Expert Press
Total Pages: 247
Release: 2017-04-11
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1631577840

Central banks do not print growth. The financial crisis was much more than the result of an excess of risk. The same policies that created each subsequent bust are the ones that have been implemented in recent years. This book is about realistic solutions for the threat of zero-interest rates and excessive liquidity. The United States needs to take the first step, defending sound money and a balanced budget, recovering the middle-class by focusing on increasing disposable income. The rest will follow. Our future should not be low growth and high debt. Cheap money becomes very expensive in the long run. There is an escape from the Central Bank Trap.

Managing a Liquidity Trap

Managing a Liquidity Trap
Author: Iván Werning
Publisher:
Total Pages: 48
Release: 2011
Genre: Economics
ISBN:

I study monetary and fiscal policy in liquidity trap scenarios, where the zero bound on the nominal interest rate is binding. I work with a continuous-time version of the standard New Keynesian model. Without commitment, the economy suffers from deflation and depressed output. I show that, surprisingly, both are exacerbated with greater price flexibility. I examine monetary and fiscal policies that maximize utility for the agent in the model and refer to these as optimal throughout the paper. I find that the optimal interest rate is set to zero past the liquidity trap and jump discretely up upon exit. Inflation may be positive throughout, so the absence of deflation is not evidence against a liquidity trap. Output, on the other hand, always starts below its efficient level and rises above it. I then study fiscal policy and show that, regardless of parameters that govern the value of "fiscal multipliers" during normal or liquidity trap times, at the start of a liquidity trap optimal spending is above its natural level. However, it declines over time and goes below its natural level. I propose a decomposition of spending according to "opportunistic" and "stimulus" motives. The former is defined as the level of government purchases that is optimal from a static, cost-benefit standpoint, taking into account that, due to slack resources, shadow costs may be lower during a slump; the latter measures deviations from the former. I show that stimulus spending may be zero throughout, or switch signs, depending on parameters. Finally, I consider the hybrid where monetary policy is discretionary, but fiscal policy has commitment. In this case, stimulus spending is typically positive and increasing throughout the trap.

How to Escape a Liquidity Trap with Interest Rate Rules

How to Escape a Liquidity Trap with Interest Rate Rules
Author: Fernando Duarte
Publisher:
Total Pages: 44
Release: 2019
Genre:
ISBN:

I study how central banks should communicate monetary policy in liquidity trap scenarios in which the zero lower bound on nominal interest rates is binding. Using a standard New Keynesian model, I argue that the key to anchoring expectations and preventing self-fulfilling deflationary spirals is to promise to keep nominal interest rates pegged at zero for a length of time that depends on the state of the economy. I derive necessary and sufficient conditions for this type of state-contingent forward guidance to implement the welfare-maximizing equilibrium as a globally determinate (that is, unique) equilibrium. Even though the zero lower bound prevents the Taylor principle from holding, determinacy can be obtained if the central bank sufficiently extends the duration of the zero interest rate peg in response to deflationary or contractionary changes in expectations or outcomes. Fiscal policy is passive, so it plays no role for determinacy. The interest rate rules I consider are easy to communicate, require little institutional change, and do not entail any unnecessary social welfare losses.

Avoiding Liquidity Traps

Avoiding Liquidity Traps
Author: Jess Benhabib
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2008
Genre:
ISBN:

Once the zero bound on nominal interest rates is taken into account, Taylor-type interest rate feedback rules give rise to unintended self-fulfilling decelerating inflation paths and aggregate fluctuations driven by arbitrary revisions in expectations. These undesirable equilibria exhibit the essential features of liquidity traps since monetary policy is ineffective in bringing about the government's goals regarding the stability of output and prices. This paper proposes several fiscal and monetary policies that preserve the appealing features of Taylor rules, such as local uniqueness of equilibrium near the inflation target, and at the same time rule out the deflationary expectations that can lead an economy into a liquidity trap.