Topic:

Inflation and Debt Rollover under Low Interest Rates

Time&Date: 

02:00 pm-03:30 pm, October 11, 2024 (Friday)

Venue

Room 207, Zhiren Building

Speaker:

Prof. Zhouxiang Shen (Zhejiang University)

We provide a new Keynesian model with overlapping generations to study the impact of temporary and permanent increases in fiscal deficits financed by debt rollover policy when interest rates are lower than economic growth rates. We show that the debt rollover policy is feasible in the monetary regime, but leads to very slow-moving debt. This policy generates persistent inflation for a temporary increase in fiscal deficits, but persistent disinflation for a permanent increase. In terms of social welfare, the debt rollover policy dominates the conventional fiscal rule to finance a temporary increase in fiscal deficits, but is dominated if the increase is permanent.

Biography:

Zhouxiang Shen is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Zhejiang University. He got his Ph.D. in economics from Boston University. His research interests include macro-finance theory, banking, and asset bubbles. His research has been published in American Economic Review.