Did the zero lower bound matter?

This is an article of faith in “Twitter economics,” but Scott Sumner, myself, and many others have been insisting for years that the arguments simply are not there and that the zero lower bound is not such a big deal.  There is now a new NBER working paper by Davide Debortoli, Jordi Gali, and Luca Gambetti:

The zero lower bound (ZLB) irrelevance hypothesis implies that the economy’s performance is not affected by a binding ZLB constraint. We evaluate that hypothesis for the recent ZLB episode experienced by the U.S. economy (2009Q1-2015Q4). We focus on two dimensions of performance that were likely to have experienced the impact of a binding ZLB: (i) the volatility of macro variables and (ii) the economy’s response to shocks. Using a variety of empirical methods, we find little evidence against the irrelevance hypothesis, with our estimates suggesting that the responses of output, inflation and the long-term interest rate were hardly affected by the binding ZLB constraint, possibly as a result of the adoption and fine-tuning of unconventional monetary policies. We can reconcile our empirical findings with the predictions of a simple New Keynesian model under the assumption of a shadow interest rate rule.

In my somewhat jaded view, the zero lower bound arguments have been an excuse of sorts to move outside of “scarcity economics” and make politically convenient claims about the necessity fiscal stimulus.  It is no wonder we ended up with MMT!

In the meantime, this evidence is the (current) final word, and I hope it will be heeded as such.