This paper examines the optimal response of monetary and fiscal policy to a decline in aggregate demand. The theoretical framework is a two-period general equilibrium model in which prices are sticky in the short run and flexible in the long run. Policy is evaluated by how well it raises the...

We construct a monetary economy in which agents face aggregate demand shocks and heterogeneous idiosyncratic preference shocks. We show that, even when the Friedman rule is the best interest rate policy the central bank can implement, not all agents are satiated at the zero lower bound and...