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This paper studies the optimal path for public debt deleveraging in a heterogeneous agents framework under incomplete financial markets. My analysis addresses two questions. What is the optimal fiscal instrument the government needs to use to reduce public debt? What is the optimal speed of public debt deleveraging? The main finding is that public debt should be reduced quickly and by cutting public expenditure. If the fiscal authority is forced to use income taxation instead, public debt deleveraging needs to be slow. Independently of fiscal instruments, the economy may end up in a liquidity trap. I show that, in my model, the zero lower bound has a redistributive effect. If the liquidity trap is very persistent, it can reallocate resources from financially constrained agents to financially unconstrained ones. Due to this mechanism, a very slow public debt reduction achieved by increasing income taxation is very costly in terms of aggregate welfare.

This paper describes a paradox of global thrift. Consider a world in which interest rates are low and monetary policy is constrained by the zero lower bound. Now imagine that governments implement prudential financial and fiscal policies to stabilize the economy. We show that these policies, while effective from the perspective of individual countries, might backfire if applied on a global scale. In fact, prudential policies generate a rise in the global supply of savings and a drop in global aggregate demand. Weaker global aggregate demand depresses output in countries at the zero lower bound. Due to this effect, noncooperative financial and fiscal policies might lead to a fall in global output and welfare. (JEL E21, E23, E43, E44, E52, E62, F32)

Este artículo describe una "paradox of global thrift". Se considera un mundo en el que las tasas de interés son bajas y la política monetaria está limitada por el límite inferior cero. Se imagina que los Gobiernos implementan políticas financieras y fiscales prudenciales para estabilizar la economía. Mostramos que estas políticas, si bien son efectivas desde la perspectiva de los países individuales, podrían ser contraproducentes si se aplican a escala global. De hecho, las políticas prudenciales generan un aumento en la oferta global de ahorros y una caída en la demanda agregada global. Una demanda agregada global más débil deprime la producción en los países que se sitúan en el límite inferior cero. Debido a este efecto, las políticas financieras y fiscales no cooperativas podrían llevar a una caída en la producción y el bienestar global ; This paper describes a paradox of global thrift. Consider a world in which interest rates are low and monetary policy is constrained by the zero lower bound. Now imagine that governments implement prudential financial and fiscal policies to stabilize the economy. We show that these policies, while effective from the perspective of individual countries, might backfire if applied on a global scale. In fact, prudential policies generate a rise in the global supply of savings and a drop in global aggregate demand. Weaker global aggregate demand depresses output in countries at the zero lower bound. Due to this effect, noncooperative financial and fiscal policies might lead to a fall in global output and welfare

This paper describes a paradox of global thrift. Consider a world in which interest rates are low and monetary policy is constrained by the zero lower bound. Now imagine that governments implement prudential financial and fiscal policies to stabilize the economy. We show that these policies, while effective from the perspective of individual countries, might backre if applied on a global scale. In fact, prudential policies generate a rise in the global supply of savings and a drop in global aggregate demand. Weaker global aggregate demand depresses output in countries at the zero lower bound. Due to this effect, non-cooperative nancial and scal policies might lead to a fall in global output and welfare.

This paper describes a paradox of global thrift. Consider a world in which interest rates are low and monetary policy is constrained by the zero lower bound. Now imagine that governments implement prudential financial and fiscal policies to stabilize the economy. We show that these policies, while effective from the perspective of individual countries, might backfire if applied on a global scale. In fact, prudential policies generate a rise in the global supply of savings and a drop in global aggregate demand. Weaker global aggregate demand depresses output in countries at the zero lower bound. Due to this effect, noncooperative financial and fiscal policies might lead to a fall in global output and welfare. ; Luca Fornaro acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness, through the Severo Ochoa Programme for Centres of Excellence in R&D (SEV-2015-0563) and grant ECO2016-79823-P (AEI/FEDER, UE), the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under Grant Agreement no. 649396, the Cerca Programme (Generalitat de Catalunya) and the Barcelona GSE Seed Grant. Federica Romei acknowledges financial support from the Fellowship Visiting program 2017–2018 at the Banco de España.

In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, sovereign default risk and the zero lower bound have limited the ability of policy-makers in the European monetary union to achieve their stabilization objective. This paper investigates the interaction between sovereign default risk and the conduct of monetary policy, when borrowers can act strategically and they share with their lenders a single currency in a monetary union. We address this question in an endogenous sovereign default model of heterogeneous countries in a monetary union, where the monetary authority may be constrained by the zero lower bound. We uncover three main results. First, in normal times, debtors have a stronger incentive to default to induce more expansionary monetary policy. Second, the zero lower bound, or constraints on monetary policy may act as a disciplining device to enforce repayment of sovereign debt. Third, sovereign default risk induces countries with a preference for tight monetary policy to accept a laxer policy stance. These results help to shed light on the recent European experience of high default risk, expansionary monetary policy and low nominal interest rates. ; The ADEMU Working Paper Series is being supported by the European Commission Horizon 2020 European Union funding for Research & Innovation, grant agreement No 649396.