Qualitative Easing: How it Works and Why it Matters

Roger Farmer

No 18421, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This paper is about the effectiveness of qualitative easing; a government policy that is designed to mitigate risk through central bank purchases of privately held risky assets and their replacement by government debt, with a return that is guaranteed by the taxpayer. Policies of this kind have recently been carried out by national central banks, backed by implicit guarantees from national treasuries. I construct a general equilibrium model where agents have rational expectations and there is a complete set of financial securities, but where agents are unable to participate in financial markets that open before they are born. I show that a change in the asset composition of the central bank's balance sheet will change equilibrium asset prices. Further, I prove that a policy in which the central bank stabilizes fluctuations in the stock market is Pareto improving and is costless to implement.

JEL-codes: E0 E5 E52 E62 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dge, nep-fmk, nep-mac and nep-mon
Note: EFG
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

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Working Paper: Qualitative Easing: How it Works and Why it Matters (2012)
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