The optimal escape from a liquidity trap involves generating private-sector expectations of a higher future price level and higher future inflation. This lowers the real interest rate and reduces the recession during the liquidity trap. The problem, emphasized by Krugman, is that central-bank...

An independent central bank can manage its balance sheet and its capital so as to commit itself to a depreciation of its currency and an exchange rate peg. This way, the central bank can implement the optimal escape from a liquidity trap, which involves a commitment to higher future inflation....

The paper extends previous analysis of closed-economy inflation targeting to a small open economy with forward-looking aggregate supply and demand, and with stylized realistic lags in the different transmission channels for monetary policy. The paper compares targeting of CPI and domestic...