Zero rates are weird, and they’ll require a weird policy response. I’m personally more in favor of fiscal stimulus. Surely there’s some level of deficit spending that could get nominal rates above zero. We’ve definitely had negative real rates in the past, just at much higher levels of inflation.

I think Rogoff is very smart, but he’s definitely allowed himself to get fooled in the past. Maybe This Time is Different would have been a more interesting book without the Excel bug — why did those four countries fare so differently from everyone else?