We prove the existence of monetary equilibrium in a finite horizon economy with production. We also show that if agents expect the monetary authority to significantly decrease the supply of bank money available for short term loans in the future, then the economy will fall into a liquidity trap today.

During the long economic slump in Japan, monetary policy in Japan has essentially consisted of a very low interest rate (since 1995), a zero interest rate (since 1999), and quantitative easing (since 2001). The intention seems to have been to lower expectations of future interest rates. But the problem in a liquidity trap (when the zero lower bound on the central bank's instrument rate is stric...

We consider inflation and debt dynamics under a global interest rate rule when private agents forecast using adaptive learning. Given the zero lower bound on interest rates, active interest rate rules are known to imply the existence of a second, low-inflation steady state. Under learning the economy can slip below this low-inflation steady state and be driven to an even lower inflation floor s...

As recent events attest, modern economies may have trouble enforcing Say’s Law. An economy with decentralized markets and trades between goods and a liquid asset, money, has two equilibria. In full-employment, output is determined by supply. But a higher demand for liquidity is self-fulfilling and precipitates the economy to an equilibrium where output is determined by demand: the increase of t...

This paper proposes a theory of liquidity dynamics. Illiquidity results from asymmetric information. Observing the historical track record teaches agents how to interpret public information and helps overcome information asymmetry. There can be an illiquidity trap: too much asymmetric information leads to the breakdown of trade, which interrupts learning and perpetuates illiquidity. Liquidity f...

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 ...