Coppola Comment

“Give me chastity and continence, but not yet,” sighed St. Augustine in his Confessions . Today, as the world reels under the impact of coronavirus, policymakers are at last reaching for tools I have long advocated: helicopter money and Universal Basic Income. And yet, like St. Augustine, I find myself sighing, “Lord, grant us helicopter money and Universal Basic Income, but not yet .” I have spent much of the last decade advocating giving people money. Helicopter money  in recessions, to boost spending and kickstart recovery: and Universal Basic Income (UBI) , to set a floor under incomes and ensure that no-one is ever left without the means to live. Now, because of the coronavirus, both are for the first time being widely, and seriously, considered. The US Government is about to give payments directly to every American adult: strictly speaking this is fiscal policy, not helicopter money, since it isn’t directly financed by the central bank, but as the Fed is buying Treasu...

Last night, the Resolution Foundation hosted a debate to launch my book, "The Case for People's Quantitative Easing". A great panel consisting of Jagjit Chadha, Director of NIESR; Fran Boait, Executive Director of Positive Money; and James Smith, Research Director of the Resolution Foundation, debated my ideas with immense verve, ably moderated by Torsten Bell, Chief Executive of the Resolution Foundation. You can watch the debate here . In 2008, QE did a great job of supporting asset prices and preventing the disastrous deflationary spiral of the 1930s. But since then, enormous quantities of asset purchases by central banks around the world have proved unable to raise aggregate demand and kickstart growth. Although central banks didn't do a bad job in the last recession, many of the tools they used won't work in the next one, not least because the legacy of the tools themselves has not yet dissipated. Interest rates are on the floor, central bank balance sh...