IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/red/sed011/1166.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Debt, Deleveraging and the Liquidity Trap

Author

Listed:
  • Paul Krugman

    (Princeton)

  • Gauti B. Eggertsson

    (NY Fed)

Abstract

In this paper we present a simple New Keynesian-style model of debt-driven slumps -- that is, situations in which an overhang of debt on the part of some agents, who are forced into rapid deleveraging, is depressing aggregate demand. Making some agents debt-constrained is a surprisingly powerful assumption: Fisherian debt deflation, the possibility of a liquidity trap, the paradox of thrift, a Keynesiantype multiplier, and a rationale for expansionary fiscal policy all emerge naturally from the model. We argue that this approach sheds considerable light both on current economic difficulties and on historical episodes, including Japan's lost decade (now in its 18th year) and the Great Depression itself.

Suggested Citation

  • Paul Krugman & Gauti B. Eggertsson, 2011. "Debt, Deleveraging and the Liquidity Trap," 2011 Meeting Papers 1166, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    • Handle: RePEc:red:sed011:1166
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://red-files-public.s3.amazonaws.com/meetpapers/2011/paper_1166.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tobin, James, 1975. "Keynesian Models of Recession and Depression," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 65(2), pages 195-202, May.
    2. De Long, James Bradford & Summers, Lawrence H, 1986. "Is Increased Price Flexibility Stabilizing?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(5), pages 1031-1044, December.
    3. Kiyotaki, Nobuhiro & Moore, John, 1997. "Credit Cycles," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(2), pages 211-248, April.
    4. S. Rao Aiyagari, 1994. "Uninsured Idiosyncratic Risk and Aggregate Saving," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(3), pages 659-684.
    5. Bernanke, Ben & Gertler, Mark, 1989. "Agency Costs, Net Worth, and Business Fluctuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(1), pages 14-31, March.
    6. Lawrence Christiano & Martin Eichenbaum & Sergio Rebelo, 2011. "When Is the Government Spending Multiplier Large?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 119(1), pages 78-121.
    7. Gauti B. Eggertsson & Michael Woodford, 2003. "The Zero Bound on Interest Rates and Optimal Monetary Policy," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 34(1), pages 139-235.
    8. Jordi Galí & J. David López-Salido & Javier Vallés, 2007. "Understanding the Effects of Government Spending on Consumption," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 5(1), pages 227-270, March.
    9. Huggett, Mark, 1993. "The risk-free rate in heterogeneous-agent incomplete-insurance economies," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 17(5-6), pages 953-969.
    10. Paul Krugman, 1999. "Balance Sheets, the Transfer Problem, and Financial Crises," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 6(4), pages 459-472, November.
    11. Aghion, Philippe & Bacchetta, Philippe & Banerjee, Abhijit, 2001. "Currency crises and monetary policy in an economy with credit constraints," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(7), pages 1121-1150.
    12. repec:bla:intfin:v:3:y:2000:i:2:p:229-60 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Michael Woodford, 2011. "Simple Analytics of the Government Expenditure Multiplier," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(1), pages 1-35, January.
    14. Michael Woodford, 2000. "Monetary Policy in a World Without Money," International Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 3(2), pages 229-260, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Gauti B. Eggertsson & Sergey K. Egiev, 2024. "Liquidity Traps: A Unified Theory of the Great Depression and Great Recession," NBER Working Papers 33195, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Jonathan A. Parker, 2011. "On Measuring the Effects of Fiscal Policy in Recessions," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 49(3), pages 703-718, September.
    3. Jesús Fernández-Villaverde & Joël Marbet & Galo Nuño & Omar Rachedi, 2023. "Inequality and the Zero Lower Bound," NBER Working Papers 31282, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Serena Ng & Jonathan H. Wright, 2013. "Facts and Challenges from the Great Recession for Forecasting and Macroeconomic Modeling," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 51(4), pages 1120-1154, December.
    5. Eric Sims & Jonathan Wolff, 2018. "The Output And Welfare Effects Of Government Spending Shocks Over The Business Cycle," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 59(3), pages 1403-1435, August.
    6. Stijn Claessens & M Ayhan Kose, 2018. "Frontiers of macrofinancial linkages," BIS Papers, Bank for International Settlements, number 95.
    7. Jochen Mankart & Romanos Priftis & Rigas Oikonomou, 2022. "The long and short of financing government spending," Working Paper Research 418, National Bank of Belgium.
    8. Engin Kara & Jasmin Sin, 2012. "Fiscal Multiplier in a Credit-Constrained New Keynesian Economy," Bristol Economics Discussion Papers 12/634, School of Economics, University of Bristol, UK.
    9. Jonathan Heathcote & Fabrizio Perri, 2018. "Wealth and Volatility," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 85(4), pages 2173-2213.
    10. Hory, Marie-Pierre & Levieuge, Grégory & Onori, Daria, 2023. "The fiscal multiplier when debt is denominated in foreign currency," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).
    11. Schoder, Christian, 2020. "A Keynesian Dynamic Stochastic Disequilibrium model for business cycle analysis," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 117-132.
    12. Magud, Nicolas E., 2010. "Currency mismatch, openness and exchange rate regime choice," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 68-89, March.
    13. Bhattarai, Saroj & Eggertsson, Gauti B. & Schoenle, Raphael, 2018. "Is increased price flexibility stabilizing? Redux," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 66-82.
    14. Sebastian Gechert, 2023. "Fiscal policy: post- or New Keynesian?," European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies: Intervention, Edward Elgar Publishing, vol. 20(2), pages 338-355, November.
    15. Fernández-Villaverde, Jesús & Gordon, Grey & Guerrón-Quintana, Pablo & Rubio-Ramírez, Juan F., 2015. "Nonlinear adventures at the zero lower bound," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 182-204.
    16. Veronica Guerrieri & Guido Lorenzoni, 2017. "Credit Crises, Precautionary Savings, and the Liquidity Trap," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 132(3), pages 1427-1467.
    17. Romer, David, 2012. "What Have We Learned about Fiscal Policy from the Crisis?," MIT Press Book Chapters, in: Blanchard, Olivier J. & Romer, David & Spence, Michael & Stiglitz, Joseph E. (ed.), In the Wake of the Crisis: Leading Economists Reassess Economic Policy, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 6, pages 57-66, The MIT Press.
    18. Edmundo Inacio & Cassio Garcia Ribeiro & Carolina Troncoso Baltar & Rosangela Ballini & Yanchao Li, 2024. "The impact of Petrobras spending on economic cycles," Portuguese Economic Journal, Springer;Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestao, vol. 23(3), pages 459-485, September.
    19. Edouard Challe & Xavier Ragot, 2016. "Precautionary Saving Over the Business Cycle," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 126(590), pages 135-164, February.
    20. Angeletos, George-Marios & Calvet, Laurent-Emmanuel, 2006. "Idiosyncratic production risk, growth and the business cycle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(6), pages 1095-1115, September.

    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:red:sed011:1166. 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: Christian Zimmermann (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sedddea.html .

    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.