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Meltzer vs Krugman sobre QE, inflación y trampas de liquidez

Genevieve Signoret & Patrick Signoret

02 September 2013

La creación de enormes reservas bancarias de la Fed (mediante sus programas de relajamiento cuantitativo) no ha impulsado la oferta monetaria amplia –ni, por lo tanto, la inflación. Allan Meltzer, quien había predicho que sí lo haría, atribuye este resultado a la tasa de interés de 0.25% que la Fed paga sobre las reservas bancarias. Paul Krugman responde que la verdadera razón es que la economía estadounidense está en una trampa de liquidez. Los que conocen la experiencia de Japón desde 1998 y los modelos de trampas de liquidez, dice, han anticipado que el relajamiento cuantitativo en estas circunstancias no produciría inflación. Además, dice, si una tasa de apenas 0.25% es suficiente para motivar a los bancos a guardar las reservas en la Fed en vez de hacer préstamos, entonces, si fuera necesario, la Fed no tendría ningún problema aumentando esta tasa para mitigar cualquier riesgo inflacionario que pueda surgir en el futuro.

Allan Meltzer:

The Fed has printed new bank reserves with reckless abandon. But almost all of the reserves sit idle on commercial banks’ balance sheets. For the 12 months ending in July, the St. Louis Fed reports that bank reserves rose 31%. During the same period, a commonly used measure of monetary growth, M2, increased by only 6.8%. No sound monetarist thinks those numbers predict current inflation.Indeed, almost all the reserves added in the second and third rounds of QE, more than 95%, are sitting in excess reserves, neither lent nor borrowed and never used to increase money in circulation. The Fed pays the banks 0.25% to keep them idle.

Paul Krugman:

So the money supply broadly defined hasn’t taken off – a complete surprise! – and hence no inflation.

Except that this isn’t at all a surprise; it’s exactly what those of us who had analyzed the liquidity trap predicted would happen when you expand the monetary base in an economy at the zero lower bound. From my 1998 paper on the subject (pdf):

The point is important and bears repeating: under liquidity trap conditions, the normal expectation is that an increase in high-powered money will have little effect on broad aggregates …

Nor was it just theory. Meltzer claims support from the lessons of history; but the relevant history is of other liquidity-trap episodes. Consider, in particular, the case of Japan’s quantitative easing in the early 2000s:

Unlike the Fed, the Bank of Japan didn’t pay interest on reserves. Nonetheless, a huge increase in the monetary base just sat there, mostly in the form of increased bank reserves – the same as what happened in America later.

We might add further that if the Fed can neutralize the supposedly awesome inflationary effect of quantitative easing by paying ¼ percent interest on reserves, it should be very easy to contain the inflationary threat in future.

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