NBER Working Papers by Christopher Phelan

In this paper we show that interest rate rules lead to multiple equilibria when the central bank faces a limit to its ability to print money, or when private agents are limited in the amount of bonds that can be pledged to the central bank in exchange for money. Some of the equilibria are familiar and common to the environments where limits to money growth are not considered. However, new equilibria emerge, where money growth and inflation are higher. These equilibria involve a run on the central bank's interest target: households borrow as much as possible from the central bank, and the shadow interest rate in the private market is different from the policy target.

In this paper, we measure the potential welfare gains from counter-cyclical policy in an economy with incomplete markets. In the course of conducting this measurement, we focus on two questions as central to the determination of those potential gains: (1) what is the likely effect of counter-cyclical policy on the nature of the income risk faced by individuals in the economy, and (2) what are the likely general equilibrium effects brought about as asset prices change due to the implementation of counter-cyclical policies? In taking up the first question, we see it as critical to distinguish whether the main effect of counter-cyclical policy is to directly reduce the income risk faced by each individual or is simply to reduce the correlation across individuals in the income risk that they...