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The liquidity trap, the real balance effect, and the Friedman rule

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  • Peter N. Ireland

Abstract

This paper studies the behavior of the economy and the efficacy of monetary policy under zero nominal interest rates, using a model with population growth that nests, as a special case, a more conventional specification in which there is a single infinitely lived representative agent. The paper shows that with a growing population, monetary policy has distributional effects that give rise to a real balance effect, thereby eliminating the liquidity trap. These same distributional effects, however, can also work to make many agents much worse off under zero nominal interest rates than they are when the nominal interest rate is positive.

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  • Peter N. Ireland, 2005. "The liquidity trap, the real balance effect, and the Friedman rule," Working Papers 05-3, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedbwp:05-3
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    1. Bhattacharya, Joydeep & Haslag, Joseph & Russell, Steven, 2005. "The role of money in two alternative models: When is the Friedman rule optimal, and why?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(8), pages 1401-1433, November.
    2. Joydeep Bhattacharya & Joseph Haslag & Antoine Martin & Rajesh Singh, 2008. "Who Is Afraid Of The Friedman Rule?," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 46(2), pages 113-130, April.
    3. Vincent Sterk & Silvana Tenreyro, 2013. "The Transmission of Monetary Policy Operations through Redistributions and Durable Purchases," CEP Discussion Papers dp1249, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    4. Harrison, Richard & Thomas, Ryland, 2019. "Monetary financing with interest-bearing money," Bank of England working papers 785, Bank of England.
    5. Barbara Annicchiarico & Giancarlo Marini & Alessandro Piergallini, 2009. "Wealth effects, the Taylor rule and the liquidity trap," International Journal of Economic Theory, The International Society for Economic Theory, vol. 5(3), pages 315-331, September.
    6. Dario Cziráky & Max Gillman, 2006. "Money Demand in an EU Accession Country: A VECM Study of Croatia," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(2), pages 105-127, April.
    7. Peter Ireland, 2005. "EconomicDynamics Interviews Peter Ireland on Money and the Business Cycle," EconomicDynamics Newsletter, Review of Economic Dynamics, vol. 7(1), November.
    8. TINA M. Edgar A. Ghossoub & TINA M. Robert R. Reedy, 2012. "Financial Development and the Distributional Effects of Monetary Policy Do the distributional consequences of monetary policy depend on the extent of financial development? Should optimal monetary pol," Working Papers 0035, College of Business, University of Texas at San Antonio.
    9. Sterk, Vincent & Tenreyro, Silvana, 2018. "The transmission of monetary policy through redistributions and durable purchases," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 124-137.
    10. Stefan Homburg, 2015. "Superneutrality of Money under Open Market Operations," CESifo Working Paper Series 5219, CESifo.
    11. Broadbent, Ben & Di Pace, Federico & Drechsel, Thomas & Harrison, Richard & Tenreyro, Silvana, 2019. "The Brexit vote, productivity growth and macroeconomic adjustments in the United Kingdom," Discussion Papers 51, Monetary Policy Committee Unit, Bank of England.
    12. Koppány, Krisztián, 2007. "Likviditási csapda és deflációs spirál egy inflációs célt követő modellben - a hitelesség szerepe [A liquidity trap and deflationary spiral in a model for pursuing an inflation target - the role of," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(11), pages 974-1003.
    13. Bacchetta, Philippe & Benhima, Kenza & Kalantzis, Yannick, 2020. "Money and capital in a persistent liquidity trap," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 70-87.
    14. Firouz Gahvari, 2012. "The Friedman Rule in a Model with Endogenous Growth and Cash‐in‐Advance Constraint," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 44(5), pages 787-823, August.
    15. Araújo, Eurilton, 2013. "Robust monetary policy with the consumption-wealth channel," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 296-311.
    16. Thomas J. Carter & Rhys R. Mendes, 2020. "The Power of Helicopter Money Revisited: A New Keynesian Perspective," Discussion Papers 2020-1, Bank of Canada.
    17. João Braz Pinto & João Sousa Andrade, 2019. "A Monetary Analysis of the Liquidity Trap with an Application to the USA," Contemporary Economics, University of Economics and Human Sciences in Warsaw., vol. 13(4), December.
    18. Takemasa Oda, 2016. "Optimal Inflation Rate in a Life-Cycle Economy," IMES Discussion Paper Series 16-E-05, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan.
    19. Homburg, Stefan, 2017. "A Study in Monetary Macroeconomics," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198807537.
    20. João Braz Pinto & João Sousa Andrade, 2015. "A Monetary Analysis of the Liquidity Trap," GEMF Working Papers 2015-06, GEMF, Faculty of Economics, University of Coimbra.
    21. Peter N. Ireland, 2017. "Allan Meltzer’s Model of the Transmission Mechanism and Its Implications for Today," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 938, Boston College Department of Economics.
    22. Homburg Stefan, 2015. "Superneutrality of Money under Open Market Operations," Review of Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 66(3), pages 289-302, December.
    23. Harrison, Andre & Reed, Robert R., 2023. "International capital flows, liquidity risk, and monetary policy," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    24. Nana Kwame Akosah & Imhotep Paul Alagidede & Eric Schaling, 2021. "Dynamics of Money Market Interest Rates in Ghana: Time‐Frequency Analysis of Volatility Spillovers," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 89(4), pages 555-589, December.

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    Monetary policy; Price levels;

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