Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System

April 2013

Optimal Fiscal and Monetary Policy with Occasionally Binding Zero Bound Constraints

Taisuke Nakata

Abstract:

This paper studies optimal government spending and monetary policy when the nominal interest rate is subject to the zero lower bound constraint in a stochastic New Keynesian economy. I find that the government chooses to increase its spending when at the zero lower bound by a substantially larger amount in the stochastic environment than it would in the deterministic environment. The presence of uncertainty creates a unique time-consistency problem if the steady-state is inefficient. Although access to government spending policy increases welfare in the face of a large deflationary shock, it decreases welfare during normal times as the government reduces the nominal interest rate less aggressively before reaching the zero lower bound.

Keywords: Fiscal policy, government spending, occasionally binding constraints, liquidity trap, zero lower bound, Markov-perfect equilibria, commitment

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