Pandemic recession and helicopter money: Venice, 1629–1631

Donato Masciandaro (), Charles Goodhart and Stefano Ugolini

Financial History Review, 2021, vol. 28, issue 3, 300-318

Abstract: We analyse the money-financed fiscal stimulus implemented in Venice during the famine and plague of 1629–31, which was equivalent to a ‘net-worth helicopter money’ strategy – a monetary expansion generating losses to the issuer. We argue that the strategy aimed at reconciling the need to subsidize inhabitants suffering from containment policies with the desire to prevent an increase in long-term government debt, but it generated much monetary instability and had to be quickly reversed. This episode highlights the redistributive implications of the design of macroeconomic policies and the role of political economy factors in determining such designs.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/ ... type/journal_article link to article abstract page (text/html)

Related works:
Working Paper: Pandemic Recession and Helicopter Money: Venice, 1629--1631 (2022)
Working Paper: Pandemic Recession And Helicopter Money: Venice, 1629-1631 (2022)
Working Paper: Pandemic recession and helicopter money: Venice, 1629-1631 (2022)
Working Paper: Pandemic Recession and Helicopter Money: Venice, 1629–1631 (2021)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cup:fihrev:v:28:y:2021:i:3:p:300-318_2

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Financial History Review from Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press, UPH, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8BS UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kirk Stebbing ().