DP14683 The Open-Economy ELB: Contractionary Monetary Easing and the Trilemma

Contrary to the trilemma, we show that international financial integration can undermine the transmission of monetary policy even in countries with flexible exchange rates due to an open-economy Effective Lower Bound. The ELB is an interest rate threshold below which monetary easing becomes contractionary due to the interaction between capital flows and collateral constraints. A tightening in global monetary and financial conditions increases the ELB and may prompt central banks to hike rates despite output contracting. We also show that the ELB gives rise to a novel inter-temporal trade-off for monetary policy and calls for supporting monetary policy with additional policy tools.

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Citation

Sandri, D and P Cavallino (2020), ‘DP14683 The Open-Economy ELB: Contractionary Monetary Easing and the Trilemma‘, CEPR Discussion Paper No. 14683. CEPR Press, Paris & London. https://cepr.org/publications/dp14683