Reflecting recent economic developments in Japan, there is a growing interest in how monetary policy should be conducted under low inflation and nominal interest rates. Among several proposed solutions, the conventional wisdom seems to be to commit to lower future short-term nominal interest...

This paper explores a causal link between aging of the labor force and declining trends in the real interest rate in Japan. We develop a search/matching model that features heterogeneous workers with respect to their ages and firm-specific skills. Using the model, we examine the long-run...