In recent years, some central banks have added a new responsibility to their list of tasks: ameliorate the effects of climate change. This could mean monitoring the short- and long-term exposure of financial institutions to climate change, or it could mean actively directing regulated financial institutions to invest in certain industries. In either case, central banks will have to determine how best to anticipate the likely effects of climate change many years into the future.

In the aftermath of the Financial Crisis (2007-08) and the Great Recession (2007-09), households and firms faced lots of uncertainty, not only about when and how the economy would recover, but also confusion on whether and how the administration, Congress, and the Federal Reserve would react. For families considering the purchase of a new car or a move to another city for a job, and for businesses considering new hires or a plant expansion, this policy uncertainty meant that the prudent choice was often wait-and-see.

Panel 1a is taken from Andrews et al. (2016), Panel 1b from Decker et al....

In the aftermath of the Financial Crisis and Great Recession of 2007-09, one explanation for the US economy’s low-level growth rate was a depression-era idea known as “secular stagnation,” which posits that such factors as persistent and very low interest rates, and/or wages and prices that remain at consistent levels, weigh down the economy’s growth rate. Interest rates near zero cannot be lowered further to incent borrowing and spending, and without such fuel for the economy, wages and prices become stagnant, or “sticky.” Growth remains sluggish.