Rola aktywnej polityki fiskalnej w gospodarce dotkniętej „pułapką płynności”

Praca finansowana ze środków budżetowych na naukę w latach 2005-2007 jako projekt badawczy 1 H02C 020 28 „Próby naprawy finansów publicznych w Polsce - przyczyny i konsekwencje niepowodzeń”.

The objective of the paper is to discuss the role of discretionary fiscal policy in a low interest rate economies. The first section presents some common arguments against the discretionary fiscal policy. They rest on two basic macroeconomic models: the Diamond-Samuelson overlapping generation model and the Barro-Ramsey model of infinitely-lived families. The next part of the paper points at some limits connected with the use o f monetary policy as the alternative for fiscal policy. Finally, the paper analyses the case of Japan’s slump in the nineties as an example of the Keynesian liquidity trap. The main conclusion is that in the low (near zero) interest rate environment when the monetary policy does not work as a stabilization tool, there is an important role for the discretionary fiscal policy.