Should We be Afraid of Friedman's Rule?

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Should We be Afraid of Friedman's Rule?

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Uhlig, Harald

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Harald Uhlig

Abstract

Should one think of zero nominal interest rates as an undesirable liquidity trap or as the desirable Friedman rule? I use three different frameworks to discuss this issue. First, I restate Cole and Kocherlakota's (1998) analysis of Friedman's rule: short run increases in the money stock - whether through issuing spending coupons, open market operations or foreign exchange intervention - change nothing as long as the money stock shrinks in the long run. Second, two simple ‘Keynesian’ models of the inflationary process with a zero lower bound on nominal interest rates imply either that deflationary spirals should be common or that a policy close to the Friedman rule and thus some deflation is optimal. Finally, a formal ‘baby-sitting coop’ model implies multiple equilibria, but does not support the injection of liquidity to restore the good equilibrium, in contrast to Krugman (1998).

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Paper provided by C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers in its series CEPR Discussion Papers with number 2548.

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Date of creation: Sep 2000
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Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:2548

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Article
- Uhlig, Harald, 2000. "Should We Be Afraid of Friedman's Rule?," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 14(4), pages 261-303, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
Paper
- Harald Uhlig, 2000. "Should we be afraid of Friedman's rule?," Macroeconomics 0004016, EconWPA. [Downloadable!]
- Uhlig, H., 2000. "Should we be afraid of Friedman's rule?," Discussion Paper 62, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research. [Downloadable!]

Find related papers by JEL classification:
E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
E41 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Demand for Money
E50 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - General
E51 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Money Supply; Credit; Money Multipliers
E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy

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Adam, Klaus & Billi, Roberto M, 2003. "Optimal Monetary Policy Under Commitment with a Zero Bound on Nominal Interest Rates," CEPR Discussion Papers 4111, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
Other versions:
- Klaus Adam & Roberto M. Billi, 2004. "Optimal monetary policy under commitment with a zero bound on nominal interest rates," Working Paper Series 377, European Central Bank. [Downloadable!]
- Roberto M. Billi & Klaus Adam, 2004. "Optimal Monetary Policy under Commitment with a Zero Bound on Nominal Interest Rates," Computing in Economics and Finance 2004 67, Society for Computational Economics. [Downloadable!]
- Klaus Adam & Roberto M. Billi, 2005. "Optimal monetary policy under commitment with a zero bound on nominal interest rates," Research Working Paper RWP 05-07, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. [Downloadable!]
- Klaus Adam & Roberto M. Billi, 2004. "Optimal Monetary Policy under Commitment with a Zero Bound on Nominal Interest Rates," CFS Working Paper Series 2004/13, Center for Financial Studies. [Downloadable!]
- Adam, Klaus & Billi, Roberto M., 2006. "Optimal Monetary Policy under Commitment with a Zero Bound on Nominal Interest Rates," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 38(7), pages 1877-1905, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
Ben Hunt & Douglas Laxton, 2001. "The Zero Interest Rate Floor (ZIF) and its Implications for Monetary Policy in Japan," IMF Working Papers 01/186, International Monetary Fund. [Downloadable!]
Lars E.O. Svensson, 2000. "The Zero Bound in an Open Economy: A Foolproof Way of Escaping from a Liquidity Trap," NBER Working Papers 7957, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
Other versions:
- Svensson, Lars, 2000. "The Zero Bound in an Open Economy: A Foolproof Way of Escaping from a Liquidity Trap," Seminar Papers 687, Stockholm University, Institute for International Economic Studies. [Downloadable!]
- Svensson, Lars E O, 2000. "The Zero Bound in an Open Economy: A Foolproof Way of Escaping from a Liquidity Trap," CEPR Discussion Papers 2566, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
- Svensson, Lars-E-O, 2001. "The Zero Bound in an Open Economy: A Foolproof Way of Escaping from a Liquidity Trap," Monetary and Economic Studies, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan, vol. 19(S1), pages 277-312, February. [Downloadable!]
David M. Arseneau, 2004. "Expectation traps in a New Keynesian open economy model," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2004-45, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
Peter Ireland, 2005. "EconomicDynamics Interviews Peter Ireland on Money and the Business Cycle," EconomicDynamics Newsletter, Review of Economic Dynamics, vol. 7(1), November. [Downloadable!]
Mauro Boianovsky, 2003. "The IS-LM Model and the Liquidity Trap Concept: from Hicks to Krugman," Anais do XXXI Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 31th Brazilian Economics Meeting] a13, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pósgraduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics]. [Downloadable!]
Claudio Morana, 2004. "The Japanese Deflation: Has It Had Real Effects? Could It Have Been Avoided?," ICER Working Papers 29-2004, ICER - International Centre for Economic Research. [Downloadable!]
Alexander L. Wolman, 2003. "Real implications of the zero bound on nominal interest rates," Working Paper 03-15, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. [Downloadable!]
Other versions:
- Alexander L. Wolman, 1999. "Real Implications of the Zero Bound on Nominal Interest Rates," Computing in Economics and Finance 1999 1152, Society for Computational Economics. [Downloadable!]
- Wolman, Alexander L, 2005. "Real Implications of the Zero Bound on Nominal Interest Rates," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 37(2), pages 273-96, April.

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