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Working Paper
Gradualism and Liquidity Traps
Modifying the objective function of a discretionary central bank to include an interest-rate smoothing objective increases the welfare of an economy in which large contractionary shocks occasionally force the central bank to lower the policy rate to its effective lower bound. The central bank with an interest-rate smoothing objective credibly keeps the policy rate low for longer than the central bank with the standard objective function. Through expectations, the temporary overheating of the economy associated with such a low-for-long interest rate policy mitigates the declines in inflation ...
Working Paper
Negative Nominal Interest Rates Can Worsen Liquidity Traps
Can central banks use negative nominal interest rates to overcome the adverse effects of the zero lower bound? I show that negative rates are likely to be counterproductive in an expectations-driven liquidity trap. In a liquidity trap, firms expect low demand and cut prices, which leads the central bank to reduce nominal rates to their lower bound. If the resulting decline in real rates is not enough to stabilize demand, then the pessimism of price setters is fulfilled. Theoretically, the effect of a negative nominal rate is non-monotonic: a marginally negative rate is not enough to escape ...
Working Paper
Optimal Inflation Target with Expectations-Driven Liquidity Traps
In expectations-driven liquidity traps, a higher inflation target is associated with lower inflation and consumption. As a result, introducing the possibility of expectations-driven liquidity traps to an otherwise standard model lowers the optimal inflation target. Using a calibrated New Keynesian model with an effective lower bound (ELB) constraint on nominal interest rates, we find that even a very small probability of falling into an expectations-driven liquidity trap lowers the optimal inflation target nontrivially. Our analysis provides a reason to be cautious about the argument that ...