”Dubblat barnbidrag kan funka som helikopterpeng”

Helicopter money has been proposed as an alternative to Quantitative Easing (QE) when interest rates are close to zero and the economy remains weak or enters recession. Although the original idea of helicopter money describes central banks making payments straight to individuals, economists have used the term 'helicopter money' to refer to a wide range of different policies, including the 'permanent' monetization of budget deficits which is nothing else than the old-fashioned idea of debt monetisation - with the additional element of attempting to shock beliefs about future inflation or nominal GDP growth debt monetization. A second set of policies, closer to the original description of helicopter money, and more innovative in the context of monetary history, involves the central bank making direct transfers to the private sector financed with base money, without the direct involvement of fiscal authorities. This has also been called a citizens' dividend or a distribution of future seigniorage. The idea was made popular by the American economist Milton Friedman in 1969 and reinforced in contemporary times by former Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke.