DP13334 Neo-Fisherian Policies and Liquidity Traps
Liquidity traps can be either fundamental, or confidence-driven. In a simple unified New-Keynesian framework, I provide the analytical condition for the latter's prevalence: enough shock persistence and endogenous intertemporal amplification of future ("news") shocks, making income effects dominate substitution effects. The same condition governs Neo-Fisherian effects (expansionary-inflationary interest-rate increases) which are thus inherent in confidence traps. Several monetary-fiscal policies (forward guidance, interest rate increases, public spending, labor-tax cuts) have diametrically opposed effects according to the trap variety. This duality provides testable implications to disentangle between trap types; that is essential, for optimal policies are likewise diametrically opposite.
