Effective Demand Failures and the Limits of Monetary Stabilization Policy
指出新冠疫情导致支付循环中断,引发有效需求失灵,此时降息无法刺激正确类型的需求,而财政转移支付更能解决根本问题,甚至实现资源最优配置。
The challenge for stabilization policy presented by the COVID-19 pandemic stems above all from disruption of the circular flow of payments, resulting in a failure of what Keynes (1936) calls “effective demand.” As a consequence, economic activity in many sectors can be inefficiently low, and interest-rate policy cannot eliminate the distortions—not because of a limit on the extent to which interest rates can be reduced, but because interest-rate reductions fail to stimulate demand of the right sorts. Fiscal transfers are instead well suited to addressing the fundamental problem, and can under certain circumstances achieve a first-best allocation of resources.