Pierpaolo Benigno

Lectures on Monetary Economics Pierpaolo Benigno

The recent two decades have witnessed unprecedented central bank interventions around the world to avert the adverse consequences of the 2007-2008 Great Financial crisis and of the Covid-19 Global Lockdown shock. These crises are "testaments" to the effectiveness of monetary policy. Lectures on Monetary Economics provides the reader with an understanding of how monetary policy works in a fiat currency system, starting from the control of the value of money to the stabilization of shocks and ending with the mitigation of depression-prone events. Part I presents a simple monetary model illustrating the three properties of money (unit of account, store of value and medium of exchange) and how central banks can control the value of money. Part II presents the New-Keynesian monetary model, mainly through a simple graphical representation, to study the stabilizing role that monetary policy plays when the economy is hit by standard shocks. Part III analyzes liquidity traps and discusses the ways that monetary policy can reflate the economy using forward guidance, unconventional asset purchases and helicopter money. It also studies the macroeconomic implications of sudden stops, debt deleveraging and shortages of safe assets.