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Negative interest rates are the latest in a series of fruitless efforts to revive post-crash economies using monetary policy. Such efforts amount to a distraction from a fundamental truth: The only way to ensure that “new money” is put into circulation is to have the government spend it.

The belief that the zero lower bound to interest rates is a significant obstacle to stimulating demand supposes that there is a host of projects that promises a prospective return less than zero but more than, say, minus one half per cent.