Pandemic recession, helicopter money and central banking: Venice, 1630

C. A. E. Goodhart, Donato Masciandaro (donato.masciandaro@unibocconi.it) and Stefano Ugolini

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: This paper analyses the monetary policy that the Most Serene Republic of Venice implemented in the years of calamities using a modern equivalent of helicopter money, precisely an extraordinary money issuing, coupled with capital losses for the issuer. We consider the 1629 famine and the 1630-1631 plague as a negative macroeconomic shock that the incumbent government addressed using fiscal monetization. Consolidating the balance sheets of the Mint and of the Giro Bank, and having heterogenous citizens - inequality matters - we show that the Republic implemented what was, in effect, helicopter money driven by political economy reasons, in order to avoid popular riots.

Keywords: central banking; helicopter money; monetary policy; pandemic; Venice 1630 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D70 E50 E60 N10 N20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 42 pages
Date: 2021-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cba, nep-his, nep-mac, nep-mon and nep-pay
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/108555/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Pandemic Recession, Helicopter Money and Central Banking: Venice, 1630 (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:ehl:lserod:108555

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library LSE Library Portugal Street London, WC2A 2HD, U.K.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by LSERO Manager (lseresearchonline@lse.ac.uk).