Noah Smith, Columnist

Maybe We Shouldn't Be So Positive About Negative Rates

They don't seem to provide much economic stimulus and may do real harm.

May 31, 2016 at 12:00 PM UTC

Noah Smith is a former Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He was an assistant professor of finance at Stony Brook University, and he blogs at Noahpinion.

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My doctoral adviser, Miles Kimball, recently said some very kind things about me on his blog, Confessions of a Supply-Side Liberal. As Miles says, my views on most issues are very similar to his. So in the spirit of friendly debate, I thought I would try to highlight one of the few areas where we do disagree -- the idea of very negative interest rates.

Negative interest rates are a new phenomenon, and they’re spreading. Japan is the leader, with 10-year government bond yields that are now in negative territory: