I present empirical evidence that we are only about two thirds of the way through a multi-decade demographic transition that is pushing down interest rates, as a higher share of the population moves into a high asset holding stage of their life cycle. I also summarise some new research that links debt, income inequality and wealth inequality, which have additional downward effects on interest rates. To address the risk of limited space for future monetary easing in such a low interest rate environment, there are three types of policy available. Changes that enable policy rates to be cut into deeply negative territory; temporarily or permanently higher inflation rates; policies that raise the neutral rate, for example by lowering time spent in retirement, or by lowering income and wealth inequality.

I present empirical evidence that we are only about two thirds of the way through a multi-decade demographic transition that is pushing down interest rates, as a higher share of the population moves into a high asset holding stage of their life cycle. I also summarise some new research that links debt, income inequality and wealth inequality, which have additional downward effects on interest rates. To address the risk of limited space for future monetary easing in such a low interest rate environment, there are three types of policy available. Changes that enable policy rates to be cut into deeply negative territory; temporarily or permanently higher inflation rates; policies that raise the neutral rate, for example by lowering time spent in retirement, or by lowering income and wealth inequality.

我提供的经验证据表明，随着越来越多的人口进入其生命周期的高资产持有阶段，我们只经历了推动利率下降的数十年人口转变的三分之二。我还总结了一些将债务、收入不平等和财富不平等联系起来的新研究，这些研究对利率有额外的下行影响。在如此低的利率环境下，为应对未来货币宽松空间有限的风险，可采用三种政策。使政策利率降至负值的变化；暂时或永久较高的通货膨胀率；提高中性利率的政策，例如减少退休时间， 或降低收入和财富不平等。