On 17 March, INET published on its website a blog note (summary) and Working Paper by William White. The Working Paper argues that, by encouraging the issue of debt, often for unproductive purposes, monetary stimulus becomes increasingly ineffective with time. Worse, it has a number of side effects that become increasingly burdensome over time. It threatens financial instability in a number of ways, leads to real resource misallocations that lower potential growth, and finally produces a policy “debt trap” that cannot be escaped without significant economic costs.
