IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ime/imedps/15-e-09.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A Model of Secular Stagnation

Author

Listed:
  • Gauti B. Eggertsson

    (Brown University (E-mail: gauti_eggertsson@brown.edu))

  • Neil R. Mehrotra

    (Brown University (E-mail: neil_mehrotra@brown.edu))

Abstract

We propose an overlapping generations New Keynesian model in which a permanent (or very persistent) slump is possible without any self- correcting force to full employment. The trigger for the slump is a deleveraging shock, which creates an oversupply of savings. Other forces that work in the same direction and can both create or exacerbate the problem include a drop in population growth, an increase in income inequality, and a fall in the relative price of investment. Our model sheds light on the long persistence of the Japanese crisis, the Great Depression, and the slow recovery out of the Great Recession. It also highlights several implications for policy.

Suggested Citation

  • Gauti B. Eggertsson & Neil R. Mehrotra, 2015. "A Model of Secular Stagnation," IMES Discussion Paper Series 15-E-09, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan.
  • Handle: RePEc:ime:imedps:15-e-09
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.imes.boj.or.jp/research/papers/english/15-E-09.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Benhabib, Jess & Schmitt-Grohe, Stephanie & Uribe, Martin, 2001. "The Perils of Taylor Rules," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 96(1-2), pages 40-69, January.
    2. Vasco Cúrdia & Michael Woodford, 2010. "Credit Spreads and Monetary Policy," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 42(s1), pages 3-35, September.
    3. Jordi Gal?, 2014. "Monetary Policy and Rational Asset Price Bubbles," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(3), pages 721-752, March.
    4. Andrew B. Abel & N. Gregory Mankiw & Lawrence H. Summers & Richard J. Zeckhauser, 1989. "Assessing Dynamic Efficiency: Theory and Evidence," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 56(1), pages 1-19.
    5. 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.
    6. Alessandro Barattieri & Susanto Basu & Peter Gottschalk, 2014. "Some Evidence on the Importance of Sticky Wages," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 6(1), pages 70-101, January.
    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. Paul A. Samuelson, 1958. "An Exact Consumption-Loan Model of Interest with or without the Social Contrivance of Money," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 66(6), pages 467-467.
    9. Robert E. Hall, 2011. "The Long Slump," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(2), pages 431-469, April.
    10. Atif Mian & Amir Sufi, 2011. "House Prices, Home Equity-Based Borrowing, and the US Household Leverage Crisis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(5), pages 2132-2156, August.
    11. Shimer, Robert, 2012. "Wage rigidities and jobless recoveries," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(S), pages 65-77.
    12. Atif R. Mian & Amir Sufi, 2012. "What explains high unemployment? The aggregate demand channel," NBER Working Papers 17830, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. 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.
    14. Gauti B. Eggertsson & Paul Krugman, 2012. "Debt, Deleveraging, and the Liquidity Trap: A Fisher-Minsky-Koo Approach," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(3), pages 1469-1513.
    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. Mathieu Boullot, 2017. "Secular Stagnation, Liquidity Trap and Rational Asset Price Bubbles," Working Papers halshs-01295012, HAL.
    2. 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.
    3. Matthew Rognlie & Andrei Shleifer & Alp Simsek, 2018. "Investment Hangover and the Great Recession," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(2), pages 113-153, April.
    4. Luca Fornaro, 2018. "International Debt Deleveraging," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 16(5), pages 1394-1432.
    5. Vladimir Asriyan & Luca Fornaro & Alberto Martin & Jaume Ventura, 2021. "Monetary Policy for a Bubbly World [Money and Capital in a Persistent Liquidity Trap]," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 88(3), pages 1418-1456.
    6. Anton Korinek & Alp Simsek, 2016. "Liquidity Trap and Excessive Leverage," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(3), pages 699-738, March.
    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. 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.
    9. Zhen Huo & José-Víctor Ríos-Rull, 2012. "Engineering a paradox of thrift recession," Staff Report 478, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    10. Roberto M. Billi & Jordi Galí, 2020. "Gains from Wage Flexibility and the Zero Lower Bound," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 82(6), pages 1239-1261, December.
    11. Guerrieri, V. & Uhlig, H., 2016. "Housing and Credit Markets," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1427-1496, Elsevier.
    12. Serena Ng & Jonathan H. Wright, 2013. "Facts and Challenges from the Great Recession for Forecasting and Macroeconomic Modeling," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 51(4), pages 1120-1154, December.
    13. Jacopo Bonchi, 2023. "Asset Price Bubbles and Monetary Policy: Revisiting the Nexus at the Zero Lower Bound," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 47, pages 186-203, January.
    14. Marco Bernardini & Gert Peersman, 2018. "Private debt overhang and the government spending multiplier: Evidence for the United States," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(4), pages 485-508, June.
    15. Manel Antelo & David Peón, 2014. "Fiscal consolidation and the sustainability of public debt in the GIPSI countries," Cuadernos de Economía - Spanish Journal of Economics and Finance, Asociación Cuadernos de Economía, vol. 37(103), pages 52-71, Abril.
    16. Bilbiie, Florin O., 2020. "The New Keynesian cross," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 90-108.
    17. Callum Jones & Virgiliu Midrigan & Thomas Philippon, 2022. "Household Leverage and the Recession," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 90(5), pages 2471-2505, September.
    18. Neil R. Mehrotra, 2018. "Fiscal Policy Stabilization: Purchases or Transfers?," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 14(2), pages 1-50, March.
    19. Jordi Galí, 2018. "The State of New Keynesian Economics: A Partial Assessment," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 32(3), pages 87-112, Summer.
    20. Jonathan Zinman, 2014. "Consumer Credit: Too Much or Too Little (or Just Right)?," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 43(S2), pages 209-237.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Secular stagnation; monetary policy; zero lower bound;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • 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

    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:ime:imedps:15-e-09. 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: Kinken (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/imegvjp.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.