AEAweb: Journal Article Full-Text Access
Note to Institutional Subscribers: If you normally access AEAweb journal content via your university or firm's subscription and receive this page, please click
here. The most likely causes of this are a recently changed IP address, a new subscription, or the renewal of a lapsed institutional subscription. This page will stop appearing on the next synchronisation of the document delivery and authentication systems.
You may also click here for pay-per-view, Athens login and other access options .
AEA Members, please click the button below to access the login form:
Hall, Robert E. 2011. "The Long Slump."
,
101(2): 431-69.
Show Article Details
DOI: 10.1257/aer.101.2.431
Abstract:In a market-clearing economy, declines in demand from one sector do not cause large declines in aggregate output because other sectors expand. The key price mediating the response is the interest rate. A decline in the rate stimulates all categories of spending. But in a low-inflation economy, the room for a decline in the rate is small,
because of the notorious lower limit of zero on the nominal interest rate. In the Great Depression, substantial deflation caused the real interest rate to reach high levels. In the Great Slump that began at the end of 2007, low inflation resulted in an only slightly negative real rate when full employment called for a much lower real rate because of declines in demand. Fortunately, the inflation rate hardly
responded to conditions in product and labor markets, else deflation might have occurred, with an even higher real interest rate. I concentrate on three closely related sources of declines in demand: the buildup of excess stocks of housing and consumer durables, the
corresponding expansion of consumer debt that financed the buildup, and financial frictions that resulted from the decline in real-estate prices. (JEL E23, E24, E31, E32, E65)
Additional links:
Download Data Set |
Online Appendix
Authors:
Hall, Robert E. (Stanford U)
JEL Classifications:
E23: Macroeconomics: Production
E24: Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital
E31: Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
E32: Business Fluctuations; Cycles
E65: Studies of Particular Policy Episodes
If you are an AEA member and do not have an AEAweb login, please
click here.
If you would like to become an AEA member, please see our
membership page.
If you arrived at this page via a journal article link, you will be redirected to the pdf after successful login.
If your first login attempt fails, and you have recently signed up for access or have recently changed your password, you may need to wait a few moments and try again.
Please contact us at
notify@aeaweb.org with any problems or questions.
Contents of Current Issues
May 2013 AER
Spring 2013 JEP
May 2013 AEJ: Policy
May 2013 AEJ: Micro
April 2013 AEJ: Macro
April 2013 AEJ: Applied
March 2013 JEL
Virtual Field Journals
In the News:
The Huffington Post reports on a study addressing the influence of lifestyle factors on shrinking height in the elderly published in the April issue of AEJ: Applied Economics.
Michael Frakes' (Cornell Law School) article on medical liability standards from the February issue of the American Economic Review was discussed as part of a Bloomberg opinion piece on medical malpractice.
Slate Magazine recently discussed former AEA president, George Akerlof's classic behavioral research and a 2012 American Economic Review study conducted by German and Swiss researchers to explore how gifting can motivate some employees more than cash incentives do in the workplace.
Contact Us
