IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bde/wpaper/1845.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The paradox of global thrift

Author

Listed:
  • Luca Fornaro

    (CREI, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona GSE and CEPR)

  • Federica Romei

    (Stockholm School of Economics and CEPR)

Abstract

This paper describes a paradox of global thrift. Consider a world in which interest rates are low and monetary policy is constrained by the zero lower bound. Now imagine that governments implement prudential financial and fiscal policies to stabilize the economy. We show that these policies, while effective from the perspective of individual countries, might backfire if applied on a global scale. In fact, prudential policies generate a rise in the global supply of savings and a drop in global aggregate demand. Weaker global aggregate demand depresses output in countries at the zero lower bound. Due to this effect, non-cooperative financial and fiscal policies might lead to a fall in global output and welfare

Suggested Citation

  • Luca Fornaro & Federica Romei, 2018. "The paradox of global thrift," Working Papers 1845, Banco de España.
  • Handle: RePEc:bde:wpaper:1845
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.bde.es/f/webbde/SES/Secciones/Publicaciones/PublicacionesSeriadas/DocumentosTrabajo/18/Files/dt1845e.pdf
    File Function: First version, December 2018
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Acharya, Sushant & Bengui, Julien, 2018. "Liquidity traps, capital flows," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 276-298.
    2. Jordi Galí & Tommaso Monacelli, 2016. "Understanding the Gains from Wage Flexibility: The Exchange Rate Connection," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(12), pages 3829-3868, December.
    3. Veronica Guerrieri & Guido Lorenzoni, 2017. "Credit Crises, Precautionary Savings, and the Liquidity Trap," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 132(3), pages 1427-1467.
    4. Alejandro Justiniano & Giorgio Primiceri & Andrea Tambalotti, 2015. "Household leveraging and deleveraging," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 18(1), pages 3-20, January.
    5. Tauchen, George & Hussey, Robert, 1991. "Quadrature-Based Methods for Obtaining Approximate Solutions to Nonlinear Asset Pricing Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(2), pages 371-396, March.
    6. Philippon, Thomas & Midrigan, Virgiliu, 2011. "Household Leverage and the Recession," CEPR Discussion Papers 8381, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    7. Guerrieri, Luca & Iacoviello, Matteo, 2017. "Collateral constraints and macroeconomic asymmetries," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 28-49.
    8. Luca Fornaro, 2018. "International Debt Deleveraging," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 16(5), pages 1394-1432.
    9. Gauti B. Eggertsson & Neil R. Mehrotra & Sanjay R. Singh & Lawrence H. Summers, 2016. "A Contagious Malady? Open Economy Dimensions of Secular Stagnation," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 64(4), pages 581-634, November.
    10. Ethan Ilzetzki & Carmen M Reinhart & Kenneth S Rogoff, 2019. "Exchange Arrangements Entering the Twenty-First Century: Which Anchor will Hold?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 134(2), pages 599-646.
    11. Olivier Blanchard & Jordi Galí, 2007. "Real Wage Rigidities and the New Keynesian Model," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(s1), pages 35-65, February.
    12. Javier Bianchi & Enrique G. Mendoza, 2018. "Optimal Time-Consistent Macroprudential Policy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 126(2), pages 588-634.
    13. Lukasz Rachel & Thomas Smith, 2015. "Secular Drivers of the Global Real Interest Rate," Discussion Papers 1605, Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM).
    14. Maurice Obstfeld & Kenneth Rogoff, 2002. "Global Implications of Self-Oriented National Monetary Rules," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(2), pages 503-535.
    15. Iván Werning, 2015. "Incomplete Markets and Aggregate Demand," NBER Working Papers 21448, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Jacopo Timini, 2018. "The drivers of Italian exports and product market entry: 1862-1913 (Updated August 2020)," Working Papers 1836, Banco de España, revised Aug 2020.
    17. Benigno, Pierpaolo & Romei, Federica, 2014. "Debt deleveraging and the exchange rate," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(1), pages 1-16.
    18. Woodford, Michael, 1990. "Public Debt as Private Liquidity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(2), pages 382-388, May.
    19. Gauti B. Eggertsson & Neil R. Mehrotra & Lawrence H. Summers, 2016. "Secular Stagnation in the Open Economy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(5), pages 503-507, May.
    20. Carroll, Christopher D., 2006. "The method of endogenous gridpoints for solving dynamic stochastic optimization problems," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 91(3), pages 312-320, June.
    21. Callum Jones & Virgiliu Midrigan & Thomas Philippon, 2022. "Household Leverage and the Recession," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 90(5), pages 2471-2505, September.
    22. Lane, Philip R. & Milesi-Ferretti, Gian Maria, 2007. "The external wealth of nations mark II: Revised and extended estimates of foreign assets and liabilities, 1970-2004," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 223-250, November.
    23. Caballero, Ricardo & Gourinchas, Pierre-Olivier & Farhi, Emmanuel, 2015. "Global Imbalances and Currency Wars at the ZLB," CEPR Discussion Papers 10905, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    24. Mervyn King & David Low, 2014. "Measuring the ''World'' Real Interest Rate," NBER Working Papers 19887, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    25. 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.
    26. Luca Fornaro & Federica Romei, 2018. "The Paradox of Global Thrift (Plus Appendix)," Working Papers 1039, Barcelona School of Economics.
    27. Dmitriy Sergeyev, 2016. "Optimal Macroprudential and Monetary Policy in a Currency Union," 2016 Meeting Papers 463, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    28. Anton Korinek, 2017. "Currency wars or efficient spillovers?," BIS Working Papers 615, Bank for International Settlements.
    29. Ivan Werning, 2011. "Managing a Liquidity Trap: Monetary and Fiscal Policy," 2011 Meeting Papers 1435, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    30. Gianluca Benigno & Pierpaolo Benigno, 2003. "Price Stability in Open Economies," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(4), pages 743-764.
    31. Lane, Philip & Milesi-Ferretti, Gian Maria, "undated". "External Wealth of Nations," Instructional Stata datasets for econometrics extwealth, Boston College Department of Economics.
    32. Temin, Peter & Vines, David, 2014. "Keynes: Useful Economics for the World Economy," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 026202831x, April.
    33. Christina D. Romer & David H. Romer, 2017. "New Evidence on the Aftermath of Financial Crises in Advanced Countries," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(10), pages 3072-3118, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Luca Fornaro & Federica Romei, 2022. "Monetary policy during unbalanced global recoveries," Economics Working Papers 1814, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    2. Acharya, Sushant & Bengui, Julien, 2018. "Liquidity traps, capital flows," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 276-298.
    3. Romei, Federica & de Ferra, Sergio, 2018. "Sovereign Default in a Monetary Union," CEPR Discussion Papers 12976, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. Xing Guo & Pablo Ottonello & Diego J. Perez, 2023. "Monetary Policy and Redistribution in Open Economies," Journal of Political Economy Macroeconomics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 1(1), pages 191-241.
    5. Wolf, Martin, 2020. "Pecuniary externalities in economies with downward wage rigidity," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 219-235.
    6. Robert Kollmann, 2021. "Liquidity traps in a monetary union," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 73(4), pages 1581-1603.
    7. Cavallino, Paolo & Sandri, Damiano, 2023. "The open-economy ELB: Contractionary monetary easing and the trilemma," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    8. Kollmann, Robert, 2021. "Liquidity traps in a world economy," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    9. Corsetti, Giancarlo & Mavroeidi, Eleonora & Thwaites, Gregory & Wolf, Martin, 2019. "Step away from the zero lower bound: Small open economies in a world of secular stagnation," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 88-102.
    10. Monnet, Eric & Degorce, Victor, 2020. "The Great Depression as a Saving Glut," CEPR Discussion Papers 15287, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Gianluca Benigno & Luca Fornaro & Martin Wolf, 2019. "The global financial resource curse," Economics Working Papers 1803, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Dec 2023.
    12. Bengui, Julien & Bianchi, Javier, 2022. "Macroprudential policy with leakages," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    13. Ahmed, Rashad, 2023. "Global commodity prices and macroeconomic fluctuations in a low interest rate environment," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(PB).
    14. Martin Wolf, 2018. "Optimal Prudential Policy in Economies with Downward Wage Rigidity," Vienna Economics Papers 1804, University of Vienna, Department of Economics.
    15. Martin Wolf, 2018. "Optimal Prudential Policy in Economies with Downward Wage Rigidity," Vienna Economics Papers vie1804, University of Vienna, Department of Economics.
    16. Wolf, Martin, 2020. "Pecuniary externalities in economies with downward wage rigidity," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 219-235.
    17. Luca Fornaro & Federica Romei, 2022. "Monetary Policy in an Unbalanced Global Economy," Working Papers 1313, Barcelona School of Economics.
    18. Pierre Olivier Gourinchas, 2023. "International Macroeconomics: From the Great Financial Crisis to COVID-19, and Beyond," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 71(1), pages 1-34, March.

    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. Luca Fornaro & Federica Romei, 2018. "The Paradox of Global Thrift (Plus Appendix)," Working Papers 1039, Barcelona School of Economics.
    2. Luca Fornaro, 2017. "Aggregate Demand Externalities in a Global Liquidity Trap," 2017 Meeting Papers 139, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    3. Luca Fornaro, 2018. "International Debt Deleveraging," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 16(5), pages 1394-1432.
    4. Corsetti, Giancarlo & Mavroeidi, Eleonora & Thwaites, Gregory & Wolf, Martin, 2019. "Step away from the zero lower bound: Small open economies in a world of secular stagnation," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 88-102.
    5. Acharya, Sushant & Bengui, Julien, 2018. "Liquidity traps, capital flows," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 276-298.
    6. Javier Bianchi & Louphou Coulibaly, 2021. "Liquidity Traps, Prudential Policies, and International Spillovers," Working Papers 780, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    7. Gianluca Benigno & Luca Fornaro, 2018. "Stagnation Traps," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 85(3), pages 1425-1470.
    8. Romei, Federica, 2015. "Need for (the Right) Speed: the Timing and Composition of Public Debt Deleveraging," Economics Working Papers MWP2015/11, European University Institute.
    9. Filippo Balestrieri & Mr. Suman S Basu, 2018. "An Imperfect Financial Union With Heterogeneous Regions," IMF Working Papers 2018/205, International Monetary Fund.
    10. Paul Luk & David Vines, 2014. "Debt Deleveraging and the Zero Bound: Potentially Perverse Effects of Real Exchange Rate Movements," Working Papers 202014, Hong Kong Institute for Monetary Research.
    11. Pierre Mabille, 2019. "Aggregate Precautionary Savings Motives," 2019 Meeting Papers 344, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    12. Romei, Federica & de Ferra, Sergio, 2018. "Sovereign Default in a Monetary Union," CEPR Discussion Papers 12976, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    13. Benigno, Pierpaolo & Romei, Federica, 2014. "Debt deleveraging and the exchange rate," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(1), pages 1-16.
    14. Javier Andres & Oscar Arce & Dominik Thaler & Carlos Thomas, 2020. "When Fiscal Consolidation Meets Private Deleveraging," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 37, pages 214-233, July.
    15. Luca Fornaro & Federica Romei, 2022. "Monetary policy during unbalanced global recoveries," Economics Working Papers 1814, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    16. Andrea Ferrero & Richard Harrison & Benjamin Nelson, 2024. "House Price Dynamics, Optimal LTV Limits and the Liquidity Trap," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 91(2), pages 940-971.
    17. Carlos Carvalho & Nilda Pasca & Laura Souza & Eduardo Zilberman, 2023. "Macroeconomic Effects of Credit Deepening in Latin America," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 55(7), pages 1817-1855, October.
    18. Marco Maffezzoli & Tommaso Monacelli, 2015. "Deleverage and Financial Fragility," Working Papers 546, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    19. Pierpaolo Benigno & Gauti B. Eggertsson & Federica Romei, 2020. "Dynamic Debt Deleveraging and Optimal Monetary Policy," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(2), pages 310-350, April.
    20. Bilbiie, Florin, 2018. "Monetary Policy and Heterogeneity: An Analytical Framework," CEPR Discussion Papers 12601, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    liquidity traps; zero lower bound; capital flows; fiscal policies; macroprudential policies; current account policies; aggregate demand externalities; international cooperation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy
    • F41 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - Open Economy Macroeconomics
    • F42 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - International Policy Coordination and Transmission

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:bde:wpaper:1845. 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: Ángel Rodríguez. Electronic Dissemination of Information Unit. Research Department. Banco de España (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bdegves.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.