TY  - JOUR
AU  - McCallum,Bennett T.
TI  - A Monetary Policy Rule for Automatic Prevention of a Liquidity Trap
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 11056
PY  - 2005
Y2  - January 2005
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w11056
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w11056.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Bennett T. McCallum
Tepper School of Business, Posner 256
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Tel: 412/268-2347
Fax: 412/268-6830
E-Mail: bm05@andrew.cmu.edu
M1  - published as Bennett T. McCallum. "A Monetary Policy Rule for Automatic Prevention of a Liquidity Trap," in Takatoshi Ito and Andrew K. Rose, editors, "Monetary Policy under Very Low Inflation in the Pacific Rim, NBER-EASE, Volume 15" University of Chicago Press (2006)

AB  - In analyses of "liquidity trap" problems associated with the zero lower bound (ZLB) on nominal interest rates, it is important to emphasize the difference between policy rule changes, intended to help escape an existing ZLB situation, and maintained policy rules designed so as to avoid ZLB situations. Analysis assuming that rule changes would lead to a new RE equilibrium immediately seems implausible. Accordingly, the paper focuses on the design of a rule that should retain stabilization effectiveness even if the economy is temporarily shocked into a ZLB situation. 
The rule considered is one that uses as its instrument variable a weighted average of an interest rate and the rate of depreciation of the nominal exchange rate. With a small weight attached to the depreciation term, it will be nearly irrelevant in normal situations but call for strong adjustments when the ZLB condition prevails. Stabilizing properties of this "MC" rule are studied within a small open economy model developed by McCallum and Nelson. Results indicate that under ZLB conditions the MC rule will provide strong stabilizing policy actions yet, under conditions such that the ZLB constraint is not relevant, the MC rule need not hinder monetary policy.
ER  -