Gradualism and Liquidity Traps

Taisuke Nakata and Sebastian Schmidt

Review of Economic Dynamics, 2019, vol. 31, 182-199

Abstract: Modifying the objective function of a discretionary central bank to include an interest-rate smoothing objective increases the welfare of an economy in which large contractionary shocks occasionally force the central bank to lower the policy rate to its effective lower bound. The central bank with an interest-rate smoothing objective credibly keeps the policy rate low for longer than the central bank with the standard objective function. Through expectations, the temporary overheating of the economy associated with such a low-for-long interest rate policy mitigates the declines in inflation and output when the lower bound constraint is binding. In a calibrated quantitative model, we find that the introduction of an interest-rate smoothing objective can reduce the welfare costs associated with the lower bound constraint by about one-half. (Copyright: Elsevier)

Keywords: Gradualism; Inflation targeting; Interest-rate smoothing; Liquidity traps; Zero lower bound (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E52 E61 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

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DOI: 10.1016/j.red.2018.07.001

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