JEEA-FBBVA Lecture 2025

The 2025 JEEA-FBBVA lecture will be given by Silvana Tenreyro, London School of Economics, on Saturday, January 4, during the ASSA Meetings in San Francisco.

The topic of his lecture will be Monetary Policy and the Effective Lower Bound. It will be chaired by JEEA Managing Editor, Romain Wacziarg.

As inflation falls back and policy interest rates are reduced, central banks in many advanced economies may have to confront again the question of where the effective lower bound (ELB) on policy rates lies and the appropriateness of different monetary policy tools, including negative (nominal) interest rates. In the first era of negative rates before the Covid pandemic, no clear consensus on their effectiveness emerged. In this lecture, Silvana will bring together empirical findings, insights from theoretical models of the ELB, and real-life concerns of monetary policy makers about possible side effects on the banking system. Overall, while negative rates pose some practical challenges, the body of analytical work suggests that they should be effective monetary policy tools over a reasonable range, particularly so in small open economies and in economies where market-based finance plays an important role in credit intermediation.

If you are attending the meetings, please do find the time to participate in the lecture.