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Bond Premium Cyclicality and Liquidity Traps

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  • Nicolas Caramp
  • Sanjay R Singh

Abstract

Safe asset shortages can expose an economy to liquidity traps. The nature of these traps is determined by the cyclicality of the bond premium. A counter-cyclical bond premium opens the possibility of expectations-driven liquidity traps in which small issuances of government debt crowd out private debt and reduce output. In contrast, when the bond premium is pro-cyclical and the economy is in a liquidity trap, government debt is expansionary. In the data, we find evidence of a counter-cyclical bond premium. Large interventions can prevent the emergence of self-fulfilling traps, but they require sufficient fiscal capacity. In a quantitative model calibrated to the Great Recession, a promise to increase the government debt-to-GDP ratio by 20 percentage points precludes the possibility of self-fulfilling traps.

Suggested Citation

  • Nicolas Caramp & Sanjay R Singh, 2023. "Bond Premium Cyclicality and Liquidity Traps," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 90(6), pages 2822-2879.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:restud:v:90:y:2023:i:6:p:2822-2879.
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/restud/rdad003
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    2. Luca Fornaro & Martin Wolf, 2021. "Monetary policy in the age of automation," Economics Working Papers 1794, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Sep 2022.
    3. Wang, Yijing, 2022. "A Liquidity-based Resolution to the Dividend Puzzle," MPRA Paper 115560, University Library of Munich, Germany.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Bond premium; Safe assets; Liquidity trap;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E0 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General
    • E1 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models
    • E5 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy

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