OVERVALUED: SWEDISH MONETARY POLICY IN THE 1930s

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Rathke, Alexander; Straumann, Tobias; Woitek, Ulrich
• 署名单位: Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology Domain; ETH Zurich; Leibniz Association; Ifo Institut; University of Zurich
• 刊物名称: INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0020-6598
• DOI: 10.1111/iere.12254
• 发表日期: 2017
• 页码: 1355-1369
• 关键词: small open-economy; exchange-rate; pass-through; MODEL; macroeconomics; stabilization; environment; RECOVERY

摘要

The article discusses Sweden's monetary policy in the 1930s, which has been hailed as the first and only example of successful price-level targeting. Our contribution is twofold. First, we argue that the crucial measure that immediately ended deflationary expectations and enabled a swift recovery was a strong and involuntary devaluation of the currency, not the adoption of a new monetary policy framework. Second, starting from the recent literature on monetary policy at the zero-lower bound, we conclude that Sweden's exchange rate policy is more relevant for the current discussion than its tentative experience with price-level targeting.