IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v94y2004i2p71-75.html

Monetary and Fiscal Remedies for Deflation

Author

Listed:
  • Alan J. Auerbach
  • Maurice Obstfeld

Abstract

Prevalent thinking about liquidity traps suggests that the perfect substitutability of money and bonds at a zero short-term nominal interest rate renders open-market operations ineffective for achieving macroeconomic stabilization goals. In an earlier paper, we showed that this reasoning does not hold, that open-market operations can provide substantial macroeconomic benefits and facilitate the use of powerful fiscal policy tools even in a liquidity trap. In this paper, we consider an alternative approach that has been suggested for use in a liquidity trap, a scheduled increase in consumption tax rates. We find that such a policy could, indeed, increase short-run consumption, but would be less effective at increasing welfare or accelerating a country's exit from a liquidity trap. Though a variant of this tax policy might induce exit from a liquidity trap, the impact of welfare is negative in this case as well. We also argue that this alternative tax-rate-based approach is subject to more severe credibility problems than the monetary policy approach explored in our original paper.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Alan J. Auerbach & Maurice Obstfeld, 2004. "Monetary and Fiscal Remedies for Deflation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(2), pages 71-75, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:94:y:2004:i:2:p:71-75
    DOI: 10.1257/0002828041301948
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/0002828041301948
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1257/0002828041301948?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Edda Claus & Mardi Dungey & Renée Fry, 2008. "Monetary Policy in Illiquid Markets: Options for a Small Open Economy," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 19(3), pages 305-336, July.
    2. Scott R. Baker & Lorenz Kueng & Leslie McGranahan & Brian T. Melzer, 2019. "Do Household Finances Constrain Unconventional Fiscal Policy?," Tax Policy and the Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(1), pages 1-32.
    3. Lewis, Kenneth A. & Seidman, Laurence S., 2008. "Overcoming the zero interest-rate bound: A quantitative prescription," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 751-760.
    4. Mr. Nicolas End & Mr. Sampawende J Tapsoba & Mr. G. Terrier & Renaud Duplay, 2015. "Deflation and Public Finances: Evidence from the Historical Records," IMF Working Papers 2015/176, International Monetary Fund.
    5. Afonso, António & Jalles, João Tovar, 2019. "The Fiscal consequences of deflation: Evidence from the Golden Age of Globalization," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 129-147.
    6. Wen-ya Chang & Hsueh-fang Tsai & Juin-jen Chang & Kuo-Hao Lee, 2015. "Consumption tax, seigniorage tax and tax switch in a cash-in-advance economy of endogenous growth," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 114(1), pages 23-42, January.
    7. John H. Cochrane, 2009. "Comment on "On the Need for a New Approach to Analyzing Monetary Policy"," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2008, Volume 23, pages 427-448, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Strulik, Holger, 2016. "Limited self-control and long-run growth," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 1-8.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E43 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Interest Rates: Determination, Term Structure, and Effects
    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy

    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:aea:aecrev:v:94:y:2004:i:2:p:71-75. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.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.