IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/asieco/v19y2008i2p155-169.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The liquidity trap: Japan, 1996-2001 versus the United States, 1933-1940

Author

Listed:
  • Sato, Kazuo

Abstract

Keynes' "liquidity trap" rarely occurs. But when it does, it has a tremendously adverse effect on the economy concerned. Such was the case of the United States in the 1930s and now that of contemporary Japan. In a liquidity trap, monetary policy pushes the money interest rate to the zero level while expanding the money supply (M1) at a faster rate than nominal GDP. Conventional theory explains this phenomenon as the result of money demand that becomes infinitely interest-elastic at the zero rate, rendering ineffective the rapidly expanding money supply established by the monetary authorities. In this paper, we show that the liquidity trap is a multifaceted phenomenon not limited to the money market. It involves the bank loan market, the bank deposit market, and the bond market interacting together. Of these, the most important is the bank loan market and the least important is the bank deposit market, whose deposit supply becomes horizontal at the zero rate. They are met by relatively interest-inelastic bank loan demand and bank deposit demand. Hence, the causality is completely reversed from the conventional understanding. We give empirical evidence in support of our theory based on data from the United States, 1933-1940 and Japan, 1996-2001. Far apart in time and space, the two cases are remarkably alike and, hence, provide strong supporting evidence.

Suggested Citation

  • Sato, Kazuo, 2008. "The liquidity trap: Japan, 1996-2001 versus the United States, 1933-1940," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 155-169, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:asieco:v:19:y:2008:i:2:p:155-169
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1049-0078(07)00172-8
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paul R. Krugman, 1998. "It's Baaack: Japan's Slump and the Return of the Liquidity Trap," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 29(2), pages 137-206.
    2. J. M. Keynes, 1937. "The General Theory of Employment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 51(2), pages 209-223.
    3. Adam S. Posen, 1998. "Restoring Japan's Economic Growth," Peterson Institute Press: All Books, Peterson Institute for International Economics, number 35, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Fangping Peng & R. J. Cebula & M. Foley & Kai Zhan, 2016. "Estimation of the liquidity trap using a panel threshold model," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(16), pages 1134-1137, November.

    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. Jorg Bibow, 2004. "Fiscal Consolidation: Contrasting Strategies & Lessons From International Experiences," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_400, Levy Economics Institute.
    2. Coenen, Gunter & Wieland, Volker, 2003. "The zero-interest-rate bound and the role of the exchange rate for monetary policy in Japan," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(5), pages 1071-1101, July.
    3. Pierre L. Siklos, 2020. "Looking into the Rear-View Mirror: Lessons from Japan for the Eurozone and the U.S?," IMES Discussion Paper Series 20-E-02, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan.
    4. Yoichi Arai & Takeo Hoshi, 2004. "Monetary Policy in the Great Recession," Discussion papers 04024, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    5. Günter Coenen & Volker W. Wieland, 2004. "Exchange-Rate Policy and the Zero Bound on Nominal Interest Rates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(2), pages 80-84, May.
    6. Lewis, Kenneth A. & Seidman, Laurence S., 2008. "Overcoming the zero interest-rate bound: A quantitative prescription," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 751-760.
    7. Alan G. Ahearne & Joseph E. Gagnon & Jane Haltmaier & Steven Scott MacDonald, 2002. "Preventing deflation: lessons from Japan's experience in the 1990s," International Finance Discussion Papers 729, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    8. Günter Weinert, 2001. "What Went Wrong in Japan: A Decade-Long Slump," Vierteljahrshefte zur Wirtschaftsforschung / Quarterly Journal of Economic Research, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research, vol. 70(4), pages 460-475.
    9. Mehrotra, Aaron, 2009. "The case for price level or inflation targeting--What happened to monetary policy effectiveness during the Japanese disinflation?," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 280-291, August.
    10. Lars E. O. Svensson, 2002. "Monetary policy and real stabilization," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 261-312.
    11. Lars E.O. Svensson, 2003. "Escaping from a Liquidity Trap and Deflation: The Foolproof Way and Others," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(4), pages 145-166, Fall.
    12. Takatoshi Ito & Frederic S. Mishkin, 2006. "Two Decades of Japanese Monetary Policy and the Deflation Problem," NBER Chapters, in: Monetary Policy with Very Low Inflation in the Pacific Rim, pages 131-1997, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Athanasios Orphanides, 2018. "The Boundaries of Central Bank Independence: Lessons from Unconventional Times," IMES Discussion Paper Series 18-E-10, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan.
    14. Paul Krugman, 2000. "Can America Stay on Top?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(1), pages 169-175, Winter.
    15. Mr. Tim Callen & Warwick J. McKibbin, 2001. "Policies and Prospects in Japan and the Implications for the Asia-Pacific Region," IMF Working Papers 2001/131, International Monetary Fund.
    16. Bayoumi, Tamim, 2001. "The morning after: explaining the slowdown in Japanese growth in the 1990s," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 241-259, April.
    17. Freydorf, Christoph & Kimmich, Christian & Koudela, Thomas & Schuster, Ludwig & Wenzlaff, Ferdinand, 2012. "Wachstumszwänge in der Geldwirtschaft. Zwischenbericht der Wissenschaftlichen Arbeitsgruppe nachhaltiges Geld," EconStor Preprints 142471, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    18. Jean-Marc Natal, 2004. "Deflation and Deflationary Traps: The Situation in Switzerland," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 140(I), pages 127-170, March.
    19. David Amirault & Brian O'Reilly, 2001. "The Zero Bound on Nominal Interest Rates: How Important Is It?," Staff Working Papers 01-6, Bank of Canada.
    20. Pascha, Werner, 2002. "Wirtschaftspolitische Reformen in Japan: Kultur als Hemmschuh?," Working Papers on East Asian Studies 44/2002, University of Duisburg-Essen, Institute of East Asian Studies IN-EAST.

    More about this item

    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:eee:asieco:v:19:y:2008:i:2:p:155-169. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/asieco .

    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.