IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bca/bocawp/21-34.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Side Effects of Safe Asset Creation

Author

Listed:
  • Sushant Acharya
  • Keshav Dogra

Abstract

We present an incomplete markets model to understand the costs and benefits of increasing government debt when an increased demand for safety pushes the natural rate of interest below zero. A higher demand for safe assets causes the ZLB to bind, increasing unemployment. Higher government debt satiates the demand for safe assets, raising the natural rate and restoring full employment. However, this entails permanently lower investment, which reduces welfare, since our economy is dynamically efficient even when the natural rate is negative. Despite this, increasing debt until the ZLB no longer binds raises welfare when alternative instruments are unavailable. Higher in inflation targets instead allow for negative real interest rates and achieve full employment without reducing investment.

Suggested Citation

  • Sushant Acharya & Keshav Dogra, 2021. "The Side Effects of Safe Asset Creation," Staff Working Papers 21-34, Bank of Canada.
    • Handle: RePEc:bca:bocawp:21-34
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.bankofcanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/swp2021-34.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paul Gomme & B. Ravikumar & Peter Rupert, 2011. "The Return to Capital and the Business Cycle," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 14(2), pages 262-278, April.
    2. Julio Dávila & Jay H. Hong & Per Krusell & José‐Víctor Ríos‐Rull, 2012. "Constrained Efficiency in the Neoclassical Growth Model With Uninsurable Idiosyncratic Shocks," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 80(6), pages 2431-2467, November.
    3. Veronica Guerrieri & Guido Lorenzoni, 2017. "Credit Crises, Precautionary Savings, and the Liquidity Trap," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 132(3), pages 1427-1467.
    4. Arvind Krishnamurthy & Annette Vissing-Jorgensen, 2012. "The Aggregate Demand for Treasury Debt," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 120(2), pages 233-267.
    5. Gauti B. Eggertsson & Neil R. Mehrotra, 2014. "A Model of Secular Stagnation," NBER Working Papers 20574, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Robert J Barro & Jesús Fernández-Villaverde & Oren Levintal & Andrew Mollerus, 2022. "Safe Assets," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 132(646), pages 2075-2100.
      • Robert J. Barro, 2014. "Safe Assets," Working Papers 2014-28, Economic Research Institute, Bank of Korea.
      • Fernández-Villaverde, Jesús & Barro, Robert & Levintal, Oren & Mollerus, Andrew, 2017. "Safe Assets," CEPR Discussion Papers 12043, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
      • Robert J. Barro & Jesús Fernández-Villaverde & Oren Levintal & Andrew Mollerus, 2014. "Safe Assets," NBER Working Papers 20652, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
      • Robert Barro & Jesus Fernandez-Villaverde & Oren Levintal & Andrew Mollerus, 2017. "Safe Assets," PIER Working Paper Archive 17-008, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, revised 10 May 2017.
    7. Aoki, Kosuke & Nakajima, Tomoyuki & Nikolov, Kalin, 2014. "Safe asset shortages and asset price bubbles," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 164-174.
    8. Ricardo J. Caballero & Emmanuel Farhi & Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, 2017. "Rents, Technical Change, and Risk Premia Accounting for Secular Trends in Interest Rates, Returns on Capital, Earning Yields, and Factor Shares," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(5), pages 614-620, May.
    9. Olivier Blanchard, 2019. "Public Debt and Low Interest Rates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(4), pages 1197-1229, April.
    10. Marvin Goodfriend & Robert G. King, 1997. "The New Neoclassical Synthesis and the Role of Monetary Policy," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1997, Volume 12, pages 231-296, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Paul A. Samuelson, 1958. "An Exact Consumption-Loan Model of Interest with or without the Social Contrivance of Money," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 66, pages 467-467.
    12. Andrew B. Abel & N. Gregory Mankiw & Lawrence H. Summers & Richard J. Zeckhauser, 1989. "Assessing Dynamic Efficiency: Theory and Evidence," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 56(1), pages 1-19.
    13. Emmanuel Farhi & Matteo Maggiori, 2018. "A Model of the International Monetary System," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(1), pages 295-355.
    14. Gadi Barlevy & Douglas Gale & Franklin Allen, 2017. "On Interest Rate Policy and Asset Bubbles," 2017 Meeting Papers 489, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    15. George-Marios Angeletos & Fabrice Collard & Harris Dellas, 2016. "Public Debt as Private Liquidity: Optimal Policy," NBER Working Papers 22794, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Zhiguo He & Arvind Krishnamurthy & Konstantin Milbradt, 2019. "A Model of Safe Asset Determination," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(4), pages 1230-1262, April.
    17. Ricardo J Caballero & Emmanuel Farhi, 2018. "The Safety Trap," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 85(1), pages 223-274.
    18. Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas & Hélène Rey, 2016. "Real Interest Rates, Imbalances and the Curse of Regional Safe Asset Providers at the Zero Lower Bound," NBER Working Papers 22618, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Hancock, Diana & Passmore, Wayne, 2011. "Did the Federal Reserve's MBS purchase program lower mortgage rates?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(5), pages 498-514.
    20. S. Rao Aiyagari, 1994. "Uninsured Idiosyncratic Risk and Aggregate Saving," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(3), pages 659-684.
    21. Florin O. Bilbiie & Tommaso Monacelli & Roberto Perotti, 2013. "Public Debt and Redistribution with Borrowing Constraints," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 0, pages 64-98, February.
    22. Loukas Karabarbounis & Brent Neiman, 2019. "Accounting for Factorless Income," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(1), pages 167-228.
    23. Anton Korinek & Alp Simsek, 2016. "Liquidity Trap and Excessive Leverage," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(3), pages 699-738, March.
    24. Jordi Gal?, 2014. "Monetary Policy and Rational Asset Price Bubbles," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(3), pages 721-752, March.
    25. Gorton, Gary & Ordoñez, Guillermo, 2022. "The supply and demand for safe assets," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 132-147.
    26. Vladimir Asriyan & Luca Fornaro & Alberto Martin & Jaume Ventura, 2021. "Monetary Policy for a Bubbly World [Money and Capital in a Persistent Liquidity Trap]," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 88(3), pages 1418-1456.
    27. Marco Del Negro & Domenico Giannone & Marc P. Giannoni & Andrea Tambalotti, 2017. "Safety, Liquidity, and the Natural Rate of Interest," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 48(1 (Spring), pages 235-316.
    28. Bacchetta, Philippe & Benhima, Kenza & Kalantzis, Yannick, 2020. "Money and capital in a persistent liquidity trap," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 70-87.
    29. Philippe Weil, 1987. "Confidence and the Real Value of Money in an Overlapping Generations Economy," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 102(1), pages 1-22.
    30. Marina Azzimonti & Eva de Francisco & Vincenzo Quadrini, 2014. "Financial Globalization, Inequality, and the Rising Public Debt," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(8), pages 2267-2302, August.
    31. Marc Dordal-i-Carreras & Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Johannes Wieland, 2016. "Infrequent but Long-Lived Zero-Bound Episodes and the Optimal Rate of Inflation," NBER Working Papers 22510, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    32. George-Marios Angeletos, 2007. "Uninsured Idiosyncratic Investment Risk and Aggregate Saving," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 10(1), pages 1-30, January.
    33. Fernando M. Duarte & Carlo Rosa, 2015. "The equity risk premium: a review of models," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, issue 2, pages 39-57.
    34. Farhi, Emmanuel & Gourinchas, Pierre-Olivier & Caballero, Ricardo, 2017. "Rents, Technical Change, and Risk Premia: Accounting for Secular Trends in Interest Rates, Returns to Capital, Earnings Yields," CEPR Discussion Papers 11833, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    35. Woodford, Michael, 1990. "Public Debt as Private Liquidity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(2), pages 382-388, May.
    36. Stephanie Schmitt-Grohé & Martín Uribe, 2016. "Downward Nominal Wage Rigidity, Currency Pegs, and Involuntary Unemployment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 124(5), pages 1466-1514.
    37. Barry Eichengreen, 2015. "Secular Stagnation: The Long View," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(5), pages 66-70, May.
    38. Rogoff, Kenneth, 2017. "Monetary policy in a low interest rate world," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 673-679.
    39. Pierre Yared, 2013. "Public Debt Under Limited Private Credit," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 11(2), pages 229-245, April.
    40. Ryan A. Decker & John Haltiwanger & Ron S. Jarmin & Javier Miranda, 2018. "Changing Business Dynamism and Productivity : Shocks vs. Responsiveness," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2018-007, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    41. Matthew Rognlie & Adrien Auclert, 2016. "Inequality and Aggregate Demand," 2016 Meeting Papers 1353, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    42. Nicolas Crouzet & Janice C. Eberly, 2019. "Understanding Weak Capital Investment: the Role of Market Concentration and Intangibles," NBER Working Papers 25869, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    43. Tirole, Jean, 1985. "Asset Bubbles and Overlapping Generations," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 53(6), pages 1499-1528, November.
    44. Hadar, Josef & Seo, Tae Kun, 1990. "The Effects of Shifts in a Return Distribution on Optimal Portfolios," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 31(3), pages 721-736, August.
    45. Pierre Yared & Marina Azzimonti, 2017. "The Public and Private Provision of Safe Assets," 2017 Meeting Papers 755, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Siddhartha Biswas & Andrew Hanson & Toan Phan, 2020. "Bubbly Recessions," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(4), pages 33-70, October.
    2. Sushant Acharya & Julien Bengui & Keshav Dogra & Shu Lin Wee, 2022. "Slow Recoveries and Unemployment Traps: Monetary Policy in a Time of Hysteresis," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 132(646), pages 2007-2047.
    3. Paul Beaudry & Césaire Meh, 2021. "Monetary Policy, Trends in Real Interest Rates and Depressed Demand," Staff Working Papers 21-27, Bank of Canada.
    4. Bacchetta, Philippe & Benhima, Kenza & Kalantzis, Yannick, 2020. "Money and capital in a persistent liquidity trap," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 70-87.
    5. Acharya, Sushant & Dogra, Keshav & Singh, Sanjay, 2021. "The Financial Origins of Non-Fundamental Risk," CEPR Discussion Papers 16793, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. Paul Beaudry & Katsiaryna Kartashova & Césaire A Meh, 2022. "Gazing at r*: A Hysteresis Perspective," RBA Annual Conference Papers acp2022-08, Reserve Bank of Australia, revised Dec 2022.
    7. Nicolas Caramp & Sanjay R Singh, 2023. "Bond Premium Cyclicality and Liquidity Traps," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 90(6), pages 2822-2879.
    8. Paul Beaudry & Katya Kartashova & Césaire Meh, 2023. "Gazing at r-star: A Hysteresis Perspective," Staff Working Papers 23-5, Bank of Canada.
    9. Harrison, Andre & Reed, Robert R., 2023. "International capital flows, liquidity risk, and monetary policy," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).

    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. Bacchetta, Philippe & Benhima, Kenza & Kalantzis, Yannick, 2020. "Money and capital in a persistent liquidity trap," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 70-87.
    2. Mathieu Boullot, 2017. "Secular Stagnation, Liquidity Trap and Rational Asset Price Bubbles," Working Papers halshs-01295012, HAL.
    3. Jacopo Bonchi, 2023. "Asset Price Bubbles and Monetary Policy: Revisiting the Nexus at the Zero Lower Bound," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 47, pages 186-203, January.
    4. Siddhartha Biswas & Andrew Hanson & Toan Phan, 2020. "Bubbly Recessions," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(4), pages 33-70, October.
    5. Vladimir Asriyan & Luca Fornaro & Alberto Martin & Jaume Ventura, 2021. "Monetary Policy for a Bubbly World [Money and Capital in a Persistent Liquidity Trap]," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 88(3), pages 1418-1456.
    6. Marx, Magali & Mojon, Benoît & Velde, François R., 2021. "Why have interest rates fallen far below the return on capital?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(S), pages 57-76.
    7. Alberto Martin & Jaume Ventura, 2018. "The Macroeconomics of Rational Bubbles: A User's Guide," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 10(1), pages 505-539, August.
    8. Hirano, Tomohiro & Toda, Alexis Akira, 2024. "Bubble economics," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 122042, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    9. Ricardo J Caballero & Alp Simsek, 2020. "A Risk-Centric Model of Demand Recessions and Speculation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 135(3), pages 1493-1566.
    10. Markus K. Brunnermeier & Sebastian, Sannikov, Yuliy Merkel & Sebastian Merkel, 2021. "Debt as Safe Asset," CESifo Working Paper Series 9500, CESifo.
    11. Bayer, Christian & Born, Benjamin & Luetticke, Ralph, 2023. "The liquidity channel of fiscal policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 86-117.
    12. Miao, Jianjun, 2014. "Introduction to economic theory of bubbles," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 130-136.
    13. Domeij, David & Ellingsen, Tore, 2015. "Rational Bubbles and Economic Crises: A Quantitative Analysis," SSE Working Paper Series in Economics 2015:1, Stockholm School of Economics.
    14. Markus K. Brunnermeier & Thomas M. Eisenbach & Yuliy Sannikov, 2012. "Macroeconomics with Financial Frictions: A Survey," Levine's Working Paper Archive 786969000000000384, David K. Levine.
    15. Michau, Jean-Baptiste & Ono, Yoshiyasu & Schlegl, Matthias, 2023. "Wealth preference and rational bubbles," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    16. Emmanuel Farhi & Francois Gourio, 2018. "Accounting for Macro-Finance Trends: Market Power, Intangibles, and Risk Premia," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 49(2 (Fall)), pages 147-250.
    17. Aditya Aladangady & Etienne Gagnon & Benjamin K. Johannsen & William B. Peterman, 2021. "Macroeconomic Implications of Inequality and Income Risk," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2021-073, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    18. Brand, Claus & Bielecki, Marcin & Penalver, Adrian, 2018. "The natural rate of interest: estimates, drivers, and challenges to monetary policy JEL Classification: E52, E43," Occasional Paper Series 217, European Central Bank.
    19. Ricardo J Caballero & Emmanuel Farhi, 2018. "The Safety Trap," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 85(1), pages 223-274.
    20. Mark Aguiar & Manuel Amador & Cristina Arellano, 2021. "Micro Risks and Pareto Improving Policies," Working Papers 2021-15, Princeton University. Economics Department..

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Fiscal policy; Monetary policy implementation;

    JEL classification:

    • E3 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles
    • E4 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates
    • E5 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit
    • G1 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets
    • H6 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:bca:bocawp:21-34. 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/bocgvca.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.