Global Effective Lower Bound and Unconventional Monetary Policy

Abstract

In a standard open-economy New Keynesian model, the effective lower bound causes anomalies: output and terms of trade respond to a supply shock in the opposite direction compared to normal times. We introduce a tractable two-country model to accommodate for unconventional monetary policy. In our model, these anomalies disappear. We allow unconventional policy to be partially active and asymmetric between the countries. Empirically, we find the US, Euro area, and UK have implemented a considerable amount of unconventional monetary policy: the US follows the historical Taylor rule, whereas the others have done less compared to normal times.

Keywords: effective lower bound, unconventional monetary policy, New Keynesian model, two-country open economy