IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/nbr/nberch/0076.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

Optimal Monetary and Fiscal Policy in a Liquidity Trap

In: NBER International Seminar on Macroeconomics 2004

Author

Listed:
  • Gauti B. Eggertsson
  • Michael Woodford

Abstract

In previous work (Eggertsson and Woodford, 2003), we characterized the optimal conduct of monetary policy when a real disturbance causes the natural rate of interest to be temporarily negative, so that the zero lower bound on nominal interest rates binds, and showed that commitment to a history-dependent policy rule can greatly increase welfare relative to the outcome under a purely forward-looking inflation target. Here we consider in addition optimal tax policy in response to such a disturbance, to determine the extent to which fiscal policy can help to mitigate the distortions resulting from the zero bound, and to consider whether a history-dependent monetary policy commitment continues to be important when fiscal policy is appropriately adjusted. We find that even in a model where complete tax smoothing would be optimal as long as the zero bound never binds, it is optimal to temporarily adjust tax rates in response to a binding zero bound; but when taxes have only a supply-side effect, the optimal policy requires that the tax rate be raised during the "trap", while committing to lower tax rates below their long-run level later. An optimal policy commitment is still history-dependent, in general, but the gains from departing from a strict inflation target are modest in the case that fiscal policy responds to the real disturbance in an appropriate way.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Gauti B. Eggertsson & Michael Woodford, 2006. "Optimal Monetary and Fiscal Policy in a Liquidity Trap," NBER Chapters, in: NBER International Seminar on Macroeconomics 2004, pages 75-144, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberch:0076
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/chapters/c0076.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brunner, Karl & Meltzer, Allan H, 1972. "Money, Debt, and Economic Activity," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 80(5), pages 951-977, Sept.-Oct.
    2. Alan J. Auerbach & Maurice Obstfeld, 2005. "The Case for Open-Market Purchases in a Liquidity Trap," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 110-137, March.
    3. Thomas J. Sargent & Neil Wallace, 1984. "Some Unpleasant Monetarist Arithmetic," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Brian Griffiths & Geoffrey E. Wood (ed.), Monetarism in the United Kingdom, pages 15-41, Palgrave Macmillan.
    4. Gauti B. Eggertsson & Michael Woodford, 2003. "The Zero Bound on Interest Rates and Optimal Monetary Policy," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 34(1), pages 139-235.
    5. Stock, James H. & Watson, Mark W., 1999. "Business cycle fluctuations in us macroeconomic time series," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 1, pages 3-64, Elsevier.
    6. Michael Woodford, 1999. "Commentary : how should monetary policy be conducted in an era of price stability?," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 277-316.
    7. Pierpaolo Benigno & Michael Woodford, 2004. "Optimal Monetary and Fiscal Policy: A Linear-Quadratic Approach," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2003, Volume 18, pages 271-364, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. David B. Gordon & Eric M. Leeper, 2005. "Are Countercyclical Fiscal Policies Counterproductive?," NBER Working Papers 11869, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Tobin, James, 1969. "A General Equilibrium Approach to Monetary Theory," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 1(1), pages 15-29, February.
    10. Marc P. Giannoni & Michael Woodford, 2003. "Optimal Interest-Rate Rules: I. General Theory," Levine's Bibliography 506439000000000384, UCLA Department of Economics.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Boris Hofmann & Marco Jacopo Lombardi & Benoit Mojon & Athanasios Orphanides, 2021. "Fiscal and monetary policy interactions in a low interest rate world," BIS Working Papers 954, Bank for International Settlements.
    2. Tischbirek, Andreas, 2018. "Large-scale bond purchases in a currency union with segmentation in the market for government debt," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 37-69.
    3. Gauti B. Eggertsson & Michael Woodford, 2003. "Optimal Monetary Policy in a Liquidity Trap," NBER Working Papers 9968, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Ben S. Bernanke & Vincent R. Reinhart & Brian P. Sack, 2004. "Monetary Policy Alternatives at the Zero Bound: An Empirical Assessment," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 35(2), pages 1-100.
    5. Christopher Bowdler & Amar Radia, 2012. "Unconventional monetary policy: the assessment," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 28(4), pages 603-621, WINTER.
    6. Yasushi Iwamoto, 2005. "Interaction between Monetary and Fiscal Policy and the Policy Mix, Theoretical Consideration and Japanese Experience," CARF F-Series CARF-F-043, Center for Advanced Research in Finance, Faculty of Economics, The University of Tokyo.
    7. Campbell Leith & Eric Leeper, 2016. "Understanding Inflation as a Joint Monetary-Fiscal Phenomenon," Working Papers 2016_01, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    8. Gauti B. Eggertsson, 2013. "Fiscal Multipliers and Policy Coordination," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Luis Felipe Céspedes & Jordi Galí (ed.),Fiscal Policy and Macroeconomic Performance, edition 1, volume 17, chapter 6, pages 175-234, Central Bank of Chile.
    9. Ben S. Bernanke & Vincent R. Reinhart, 2004. "Conducting Monetary Policy at Very Low Short-Term Interest Rates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(2), pages 85-90, May.
    10. Benigno, Pierpaolo & Woodford, Michael, 2012. "Linear-quadratic approximation of optimal policy problems," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(1), pages 1-42.
    11. Mr. Andre Meier, 2009. "Panacea, Curse, or Nonevent? Unconventional Monetary Policy in the United Kingdom," IMF Working Papers 2009/163, International Monetary Fund.
    12. Pierpaolo Benigno & Michael Woodford, 2005. "Inflation Stabilization And Welfare: The Case Of A Distorted Steady State," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 3(6), pages 1185-1236, December.
    13. Garga, Vaishali & Singh, Sanjay R., 2021. "Output hysteresis and optimal monetary policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 871-886.
    14. Adam, Klaus & Billi, Roberto M., 2007. "Discretionary monetary policy and the zero lower bound on nominal interest rates," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(3), pages 728-752, April.
    15. Charles R. Bean & Matthias Paustian & Adrian Penalver & Tim Taylor, 2010. "Monetary policy after the fall," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 267-328.
    16. Boris Chafwehé & Rigas Oikonomou & Romanos Priftis & Lukas Vogel, 2021. "(Optimal) Monetary Policy with and without Debt," Staff Working Papers 21-5, Bank of Canada.
    17. Mitsuru Iwamura & Takeshi Kudo & Tsutomu Watanabe, 2005. "Monetary and fiscal policy in a liquidity trap: the Japanese experience 1999-2004," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    18. Eric Leeper & James Nason, 2014. "Bringing Financial Stability into Monetary Policy," CAEPR Working Papers 2014-003, Center for Applied Economics and Policy Research, Department of Economics, Indiana University Bloomington.
    19. Giannoni, Marc P. & Woodford, Michael, 2017. "Optimal target criteria for stabilization policy," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 55-106.
    20. Claudio Borio & Anna Zabai, 2018. "Unconventional monetary policies: a re-appraisal," Chapters, in: Peter Conti-Brown & Rosa M. Lastra (ed.), Research Handbook on Central Banking, chapter 20, pages 398-444, Edward Elgar Publishing.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy
    • E63 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Comparative or Joint Analysis of Fiscal and Monetary Policy; Stabilization; Treasury Policy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberch:0076. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.