Monetary Easing, Leveraged Payouts, and Lack of Investment

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Acharya, Viral; Plantin, Guillaume
• 署名单位: Centre for Economic Policy Research - UK; New York University; National Bureau of Economic Research; Institut d'Etudes Politiques Paris (Sciences Po)
• 刊物名称: MANAGEMENT SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0025-1909
• DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.2022.01440
• 发表日期: 2025
• 关键词: Unconventional monetary policy; monetary easing; shadow banking; Leaning against the wind; leverage; share buybacks

摘要

We study a model in which a low monetary policy rate lowers the cost of corporate debt, potentially spurring productive investment; low interest rates, however, also induce firms to lever up so as to increase payouts to equity. Whereas such leveraged payouts privately benefit shareholders, leverage comes at the social cost of distorting their incentives, thereby lowering productivity and discouraging investment. If leverage is unregulated (for example, because of the presence of a shadow banking system), then the optimal monetary policy seeks to contain such socially costly leveraged payouts by stimulating investment in response to adverse shocks only up to a level below the first best. The optimal monetary policy may even consist of leaning against the wind, that is, not stimulating the economy at all, in order to fully contain leveraged payouts and maintain productive efficiency.