Conference Paper

Monetary and fiscal policy in a liquidity trap: the Japanese experience 1999-2004

Abstract: We characterize monetary and fiscal policy rules to implement optimal responses to a substantial decline in the natural rate of interest, and compare them with policy decisions made by the Japanese central bank and government in 1999?2004. First, we find that the Bank of Japan?s policy commitment to continuing monetary easing until some prespecified conditions are satisfied lacks history dependence, a key feature of the optimal monetary policy rule. Second, the term structure of the interest rate gap (the spread between the actual real interest rate and its natural rate counterpart) was not downward sloping, indicating that the Bank of Japan?s commitment failed to have sufficient influence on the market?s expectations about the future course of monetary policy. Third, we find that the primary surplus in 1999?2002 was higher than predicted by the historical regularity, implying that the Japanese government deviated from the Ricardian rule toward fiscal tightening. These findings suggest that inappropriate conduct of monetary and fiscal policy during this period delayed the timing to escape from the liquidity trap.

Keywords: Fiscal policy; Monetary policy;

Status: Published in Fiscal and Monetary Policy : a conference (2005: March 4-5)

Bibliographic Information

Provider: Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco

Part of Series: Proceedings

Publication Date: 2005