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Was Keynes's Monetary Policy, a outrance in the Treatise, a Forerunnner of ZIRP and QE? Did He Change His Mind in the General Theory?

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  • Jan Kregel

Abstract

At the end of 1930, as the 1929 US stock market crash was starting to have an impact on the real economy in the form of falling commodity prices, falling output, and rising unemployment, John Maynard Keynes, in the concluding chapters of his Treatise on Money, launched a challenge to monetary authorities to take "deliberate and vigorous action" to reduce interest rates and reverse the crisis. He argues that until "extraordinary," "unorthodox" monetary policy action "has been taken along such lines as these and has failed, need we, in the light of the argument of this treatise, admit that the banking system can not, on this occasion, control the rate of investment, and, therefore, the level of prices." The "unorthodox" policies that Keynes recommends are a near-perfect description of the Japanese central bank's experiment with a zero interest rate policy (ZIRP) in the 1990s and the Federal Reserve's experiment with ZIRP, accompanied by quantitative easing (QE1 and QE2), during the recent crisis. These experiments may be considered a response to Keynes's challenge, and to provide a clear test of his belief in the power of monetary policy to counter financial crisis. That response would appear to be an unequivocal No.

Suggested Citation

  • Jan Kregel, 2011. "Was Keynes's Monetary Policy, a outrance in the Treatise, a Forerunnner of ZIRP and QE? Did He Change His Mind in the General Theory?," Economics Policy Note Archive 11-04, Levy Economics Institute.
  • Handle: RePEc:lev:levypn:11-04
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    Cited by:

    1. William R. White, 2013. "Is Monetary Policy a Science? The Interaction of Theory and Practice over the Last 50 Years," SUERF 50th Anniversary Volume Chapters, in: Morten Balling & Ernest Gnan (ed.), 50 Years of Money and Finance: Lessons and Challenges, chapter 3, pages 73-116, SUERF - The European Money and Finance Forum.
    2. Jan Kregel, 2014. "Why Raising Rates May Speed the Recovery," Economics Policy Note Archive 14-6, Levy Economics Institute.
    3. Tanweer Akram & Anupam Das, 2020. "Australian Government Bonds’ Nominal Yields: A Keynesian Perspective," Annals of Financial Economics (AFE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 15(01), pages 1-20, March.
    4. Tanweer Akram & Huiqing Li, 2016. "The Empirics of Long-Term US Interest Rates," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_863, Levy Economics Institute.
    5. Akram, Tanweer & Li, Huiqing, 2017. "What keeps long-term U.S. interest rates so low?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 380-390.
    6. Tanweer Akram, 2021. "A Note Concerning the Dynamics of Government Bond Yields," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 66(2), pages 323-339, October.
    7. Tanweer Akram & Huiqing Li, 2017. "An Inquiry Concerning Long-term US Interest Rates Using Monthly Data," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_894, Levy Economics Institute.
    8. Tanweer Akram & Anupam Das, 2015. "Does Keynesian Theory Explain Indian Government Bond Yields?," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_834, Levy Economics Institute.
    9. Tanweer Akram & Huiqing Li, 2020. "The Empirics of UK Gilts' Yields," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_969, Levy Economics Institute.
    10. Tanweer Akram & Huiqing Li, 2019. "The Impact of the Bank of Japan's Monetary Policy on Japanese Government Bonds' Low Nominal Yields," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_938, Levy Economics Institute.
    11. Tanweer Akram & Anupam Das, 2017. "The Dynamics of Government Bond Yields in the Eurozone," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_889, Levy Economics Institute.
    12. Tanweer Akram & Syed Al-Helal Uddin, 2021. "The Empirics of Long-Term Mexican Government Bond Yields," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_984, Levy Economics Institute.
    13. Tanweer Akram & Anupam Das, 2014. "The Determinants of Long-Term Japanese Government Bonds' Low Nominal Yields," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_818, Levy Economics Institute.
    14. William R. White, 2012. "Ultra easy monetary policy and the law of unintended consequences," Globalization Institute Working Papers 126, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
    15. Tanweer Akram, 2020. "A Note Concerning Government Bond Yields," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_977, Levy Economics Institute.
    16. Tanweer Akram & Anupam Das, 2017. "The Dynamics Of Government Bond Yields In The Euro Zone," Annals of Financial Economics (AFE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 12(03), pages 1-18, September.
    17. Anupam Das & Tanweer Akram, 2020. "A Keynesian analysis of Canadian government securities yields," PSL Quarterly Review, Economia civile, vol. 73(294), pages 241-260.
    18. Tanweer Akram & Syed Al-Helal Uddin, 2021. "An empirical analysis of long-term Brazilian interest rates," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(9), pages 1-20, September.
    19. Tanweer Akram & Huiqing Li, 2018. "The Dynamics of Japanese Government Bonds' Nominal Yields," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_906, Levy Economics Institute.
    20. Tanweer Akram & Anupam Das, 2017. "The Long-run Determinants of Indian Government Bond Yields," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_881, Levy Economics Institute.
    21. Tanweer Akram & Huiqing Li, 2020. "Some Empirical Models of Japanese Government Bond Yields Using Daily Data," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_962, Levy Economics Institute.
    22. Tanweer Akram & Anupam Das, 2018. "Australian Government Bonds' Nominal Yields: An Empirical Analysis," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_910, Levy Economics Institute.
    23. Tanweer Akram & Anupam Das, 2020. "The Empirics of Canadian Government Securities Yields," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_944, Levy Economics Institute.

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