Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers floated the idea of continuous purchases of stocks as a potential ingredient in a recipe for the developed world to strengthen economies struggling with subdued growth and inflation.
Among the proposals that deserve “serious reflection” is the purchase of a “wider range of assets on a sustained and continuing basis," Summers said in a lecture at a Bank of Japan conference in Tokyo Friday. "I’m not prepared to make a policy recommendation at this point,” he told reporters later.
Summers, who also served as a top economic adviser to President Barack Obama, reiterated his concerns about “secular stagnation,” where trend economic growth rates have been reduced and neutral interest rates are lower than historic norms. To the extent that low neutral rates are in part the consequence of investors preferring fixed-income assets and steering clear of riskier options, policy makers can combat that by buying risk assets, he said.
Japan has “engaged in that type of transaction to much greater extent than other countries,” Summers said, pointing out among its initiatives the BOJ’s purchases of exchange-traded funds. “It is something that economic logic suggests should be considered in other places where the zero lower bound is a potentially important monetary policy issue,” he said, referring to the perceived lower limit for benchmark rates set by central banks.
Political Questions
“There are obviously important political and economic questions associated with government ownership of companies,” Summers noted. Some critics could term such a policy as “socialism,” he said, while others could highlight that governments already buy stocks in other ways, such as in the U.S. for federal employee pension funds.
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