MIT Press
Fiscal Policy Under Low Interest Rates
Key Metrics
- Olivier Blanchard
- MIT Press
- Paperback
- 9780262544870
- -
- -
- Business & Economics > Economics - Macroeconomics
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
Policy makers in advanced economies find themselves in an unusual fiscal environment: debt ratios are historically high, while real interest rates are extremely low. Such a fundamental change, which seems likely to last, calls for a rethinking of the role of fiscal and monetary policy--and this is just what Olivier Blanchard proposes in Fiscal Policy under Low Interest Rates.
There is a wide set of opinions about the direction fiscal policy should take. Some, pointing to the high debt levels, make debt reduction an absolute priority. Others, pointing to the low interest rates, are less worried; they suggest that there is still fiscal space, and, if justified, further increases in debt should not be ruled out. Blanchard argues that low interest rates decrease not only the fiscal costs of debt, but also the welfare costs of debt. At the same time, he shows how low rates decrease the room for maneuver of monetary policy--and thus increase the benefits of using fiscal policy, including deficits and debt, for macroeconomic stabilization. In short, low rates imply lower costs and higher benefits of debt.
Having sketched what optimal policy looks like, Blanchard considers three examples of fiscal policy in action: fiscal consolidation in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis, the large increase in debt in Japan, and the current US fiscal and monetary policy mix. His conclusions hold practical implications for economic and fiscal policy makers, bankers, and politicians around the world.
Author Bio
Olivier Blanchard is the C. Fred Bergsten Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and the Robert M. Solow Professor of Economics emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). A citizen of France, Blanchard has spent most of his professional life in the United States. After obtaining his PhD in economics from MIT in 1977, he taught at Harvard University and returned to MIT in 1982. He was chair of the economics department from 1998 to 2003. In 2008, he took a leave of absence to serve as economic counsellor and director of the research department at the International Monetary Fund where he stayed until 2015. He then joined the Peterson Institute.
Blanchard has worked on a wide set of macroeconomic issues, including the role of monetary and fiscal policy, speculative bubbles, the labor market and determinants of unemployment, economic transition in former communist countries, and the nature of the Global Financial Crisis. In the process, he has worked with numerous countries and international organizations.
Blanchard is the author of many books and articles, including two textbooks on macroeconomics, one at the graduate level with Stanley Fischer and the other at the undergraduate level. He is a past editor of the Quarterly Journal of Economics and the NBER Macroeconomics Annual and founding editor of American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics. He is a fellow and former Council member of the Econometric Society, a past president of the American Economic Association, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Source: Peterson Institute for International Economics
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