IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/16758.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Unconventional Fiscal Policy at the Zero Bound

Author

Listed:
  • Isabel Correia
  • Emmanuel Farhi
  • Juan Pablo Nicolini
  • Pedro Teles

Abstract

When the zero lower bound on nominal interest rates binds, monetary policy cannot provide appropriate stimulus. We show that in the standard New Keynesian model, tax policy can deliver such stimulus at no cost and in a time-consistent manner. There is no need to use inefficient policies such as wasteful public spending or future commitments to inflate. We conclude that in the New Keynesian model, the zero bound on nominal interest rates is not a relevant constraint on both fiscal and monetary policy.

Suggested Citation

  • Isabel Correia & Emmanuel Farhi & Juan Pablo Nicolini & Pedro Teles, 2011. "Unconventional Fiscal Policy at the Zero Bound," NBER Working Papers 16758, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:16758
    Note: EFG ME
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w16758.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. De Long, James Bradford & Summers, Lawrence H, 1986. "Is Increased Price Flexibility Stabilizing?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(5), pages 1031-1044, December.
    2. Bernardino Adao & Isabel Correia & Pedro Teles, 2011. "Unique Monetary Equilibria with Interest Rate Rules," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 14(3), pages 432-442, July.
    3. Bernheim, B Douglas, 1991. "Optimal Fiscal and Monetary Policy: Some Recent Results," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 23(3), pages 540-542, August.
    4. Chari, V V & Christiano, Lawrence J & Kehoe, Patrick J, 1991. "Optimal Fiscal and Monetary Policy: Some Recent Results," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 23(3), pages 519-539, August.
    5. Isabel Correia & Juan Pablo Nicolini & Pedro Teles, 2008. "Optimal Fiscal and Monetary Policy: Equivalence Results," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 116(1), pages 141-170, February.
    6. Diamond, Peter A & Mirrlees, James A, 1971. "Optimal Taxation and Public Production: I--Production Efficiency," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 61(1), pages 8-27, March.
    7. Lawrence Christiano & Martin Eichenbaum & Sergio Rebelo, 2011. "When Is the Government Spending Multiplier Large?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 119(1), pages 78-121.
    8. 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.
    9. Calvo, Guillermo A., 1983. "Staggered prices in a utility-maximizing framework," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 383-398, September.
    10. Thorsten Drautzburg & Harald Uhlig, 2015. "Fiscal Stimulus and Distortionary Taxation," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 18(4), pages 894-920, October.
    11. Olivier Blanchard & Giovanni Dell'Ariccia & Paolo Mauro, 2010. "Rethinking Macroeconomic Policy," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 42(s1), pages 199-215, September.
    12. Gauti B. Eggertsson, 2011. "What Fiscal Policy Is Effective at Zero Interest Rates?," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2010, volume 25, pages 59-112, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Gauti B. Eggertsson & Michael Woodford, 2004. "Policy Options in a Liquidity Trap," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(2), pages 76-79, May.
    14. Karel R. S. M. Mertens & Morten O. Ravn, 2014. "Fiscal Policy in an Expectations-Driven Liquidity Trap," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 81(4), pages 1637-1667.
    15. Lucas, Robert Jr. & Stokey, Nancy L., 1983. "Optimal fiscal and monetary policy in an economy without capital," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 55-93.
    16. Sargent, Thomas J & Wallace, Neil, 1975. ""Rational" Expectations, the Optimal Monetary Instrument, and the Optimal Money Supply Rule," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 83(2), pages 241-254, April.
    17. Richard H. Clarida & Jeffrey Frankel & Francesco Giavazzi & Kenneth D. West, 2006. "NBER International Seminar on Macroeconomics 2004," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number clar06-1, May.
    18. Paul R. Krugman, 1998. "It's Baaack: Japan's Slump and the Return of the Liquidity Trap," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 29(2), pages 137-206.
    19. 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.
    20. Olivier Blanchard & Giovanni Dell'Ariccia & Paolo Mauro, 2010. "Rethinking Macroeconomic Policy," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 42(s1), pages 199-215, September.
    21. Tack Yun, 2005. "Optimal Monetary Policy with Relative Price Distortions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 89-109, March.
    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. Boubaker, Sabri & Nguyen, Duc Khuong & Paltalidis, Nikos, 2018. "Fiscal policy interventions at the zero lower bound," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 297-314.
    2. Boneva, Lena Mareen & Braun, R. Anton & Waki, Yuichiro, 2016. "Some unpleasant properties of loglinearized solutions when the nominal rate is zero," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 216-232.
    3. Correia, Isabel & De Fiore, Fiorella & Teles, Pedro & Tristani, Oreste, 2021. "Credit subsidies," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 2-14.
    4. Francesco D’Acunto & Daniel Hoang & Michael Weber, 2017. "The Effect of Unconventional Fiscal Policy on Consumption Expenditure," ifo DICE Report, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 15(01), pages 09-11, April.
    5. Volker Hahn, 2017. "Policy Effects in a Simple Fully Non-Linear New Keynesian Model of the Liquidity Trap," Working Paper Series of the Department of Economics, University of Konstanz 2017-05, Department of Economics, University of Konstanz.
    6. Christopher Erceg & Jesper Lindé, 2014. "Is There A Fiscal Free Lunch In A Liquidity Trap?," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 12(1), pages 73-107, February.
    7. William John Tayler & Roy Zilberman, 2017. "Taxation, Credit Spreads and Liquidity Traps," Working Papers 173174116, Lancaster University Management School, Economics Department.
    8. Isabel Correia & Juan Pablo Nicolini & Pedro Teles, 2008. "Optimal Fiscal and Monetary Policy: Equivalence Results," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 116(1), pages 141-170, February.
    9. Michau, Jean-Baptiste, 2019. "Monetary and fiscal policy in a liquidity trap with inflation persistence," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 1-28.
    10. Acharya, Sushant & Bengui, Julien, 2018. "Liquidity traps, capital flows," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 276-298.
    11. Lemoine, Matthieu & Lindé, Jesper, 2023. "Fiscal stimulus in liquidity traps: Conventional or unconventional policies?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    12. Miao, Jianjun & Ngo, Phuong V., 2021. "Does Calvo Meet Rotemberg At The Zero Lower Bound?," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 25(4), pages 1090-1111, June.
    13. Gauti B. Eggertsson, 2008. "Great Expectations and the End of the Depression," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(4), pages 1476-1516, September.
    14. Piazza, Roberto, 2016. "Self-fulfilling deflations," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 18-40.
    15. Gavin, William T. & Keen, Benjamin D. & Richter, Alexander W. & Throckmorton, Nathaniel A., 2015. "The zero lower bound, the dual mandate, and unconventional dynamics," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 14-38.
    16. Julio Carrillo & Celine Poilly, 2013. "How do financial frictions affect the spending multiplier during a liquidity trap?," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 16(2), pages 296-311, April.
    17. Nakata, Taisuke & Schmidt, Sebastian, 2019. "Conservatism and liquidity traps," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 37-47.
    18. Albonico, Alice & Ascari, Guido & Gobbi, Alessandro, 2021. "The public debt multiplier," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    19. Eggertsson, Gauti B. & Singh, Sanjay R., 2019. "Log-linear approximation versus an exact solution at the ZLB in the New Keynesian model," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 21-43.
    20. Gauti B. Eggertsson, 2012. "Was the New Deal Contractionary?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(1), pages 524-555, February.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E12 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models - - - Keynes; Keynesian; Post-Keynesian; Modern Monetary Theory
    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy
    • E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies
    • E6 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook
    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory

    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:nberwo:16758. 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.