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A Monetary Policy Rule for Automatic Prevention of a Liquidity Trap

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  • Bennett T. McCallum

Abstract

In analyses of "liquidity trap" problems associated with the zero lower bound (ZLB) on nominal interest rates, it is important to emphasize the difference between policy rule changes, intended to help escape an existing ZLB situation, and maintained policy rules designed so as to avoid ZLB situations. Analysis assuming that rule changes would lead to a new RE equilibrium immediately seems implausible. Accordingly, the paper focuses on the design of a rule that should retain stabilization effectiveness even if the economy is temporarily shocked into a ZLB situation. The rule considered is one that uses as its instrument variable a weighted average of an interest rate and the rate of depreciation of the nominal exchange rate. With a small weight attached to the depreciation term, it will be nearly irrelevant in normal situations but call for strong adjustments when the ZLB condition prevails. Stabilizing properties of this "MC" rule are studied within a small open economy model developed by McCallum and Nelson. Results indicate that under ZLB conditions the MC rule will provide strong stabilizing policy actions yet, under conditions such that the ZLB constraint is not relevant, the MC rule need not hinder monetary policy.

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  • Bennett T. McCallum, 2005. "A Monetary Policy Rule for Automatic Prevention of a Liquidity Trap," NBER Working Papers 11056, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11056
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    Cited by:

    1. Dr. Gregor Bäurle & Daniel Kaufmann, 2014. "Exchange rate and price dynamics in a small open economy - the role of the zero lower bound and monetary policy regimes," Working Papers 2014-10, Swiss National Bank.
    2. Kaufmann, Daniel & Bäurle, Gregor, 2013. "Exchange Rate and Price Dynamics at the Zero Lower Bound," VfS Annual Conference 2013 (Duesseldorf): Competition Policy and Regulation in a Global Economic Order 79872, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    3. Marcus Hagedorn, 2007. "Nominal and Real Interest Rates during an Optimal Disinflation in New Keynesian Models," IEW - Working Papers 352, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    4. Bennett T. McCallum, 2007. "Monetary Policy in East Asia: The Case of Singapore," Monetary and Economic Studies, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan, vol. 25(S1), pages 13-28, December.
    5. Vítor Gaspar, 2007. "Is Time Ripe for Price Level Path Stability?," Working Papers w200719, Banco de Portugal, Economics and Research Department.
    6. Sebastian Edwards, 2006. "External Imbalances in an Advanced, Commodity-Exporting Country: The Case of New Zealand," NBER Working Papers 12620, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Zakaria Moussa, 2016. "How big is the comeback? Japanese exchange rate pass-through assessed by time-varying FAVAR," Post-Print hal-03714934, HAL.
    8. John W. Keating & Logan J. Kelly & A. Lee Smith & Victor J. Valcarcel, 2019. "A Model of Monetary Policy Shocks for Financial Crises and Normal Conditions," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 51(1), pages 227-259, February.
    9. Teo, Wing Leong, 2009. "Can exchange rate rules be better than interest rate rules?," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 301-311, August.
    10. Gunaratna, Thakshila, 2014. "Differences in monetary policies between two hypothetical closed economies:one which is concerned with avoiding a large negative output gap and the other which is not," MPRA Paper 61826, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 03 Feb 2015.
    11. Jacek Krawczyk & Rishab Sethi, 2007. "Satisficing Solutions for New Zealand Monetary Policy," Reserve Bank of New Zealand Discussion Paper Series DP2007/03, Reserve Bank of New Zealand.
    12. Bennett T. McCallum, 2014. "Monetary Policy in a Very Open Economy: Some Major Analytical Issues," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(1), pages 27-60, February.
    13. Vitor Gaspar & Frank Smets & David Vestin, 2006. "Optimal Monetary Policy under Adaptive Learning," Computing in Economics and Finance 2006 183, Society for Computational Economics.
    14. Zakaria Moussa, 2016. "How big is the comeback? Japanese exchange rate pass-through assessed by Time-Varying FAVAR," Working Papers hal-01282811, HAL.
    15. Jacek Krawczyk & Kunhong Kim, 2014. "Viable Stabilising Non-Taylor Monetary Policies for an Open Economy," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 43(2), pages 233-268, February.

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    JEL classification:

    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy
    • E3 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles
    • F41 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - Open Economy Macroeconomics

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