¿Qué es el helicopter money?

Esta expresión es uma metáfora que usó Friedman ya en 1969, para describir una política monetaria contra la deflación. Bernanke, con su claridad habitual, explica en qué consiste:

What is helicopter money and how does it work?

As I learned when I spoke about it in 2002, the imagery of “helicopter money” is off-putting to many people. But using unrealistic examples is often a useful way at getting at the essence of an issue. [3] The fact that no responsible government would ever literally drop money from the sky should not prevent us from exploring the logic of Friedman’s thought experiment, which was designed to show—in admittedly extreme terms—why governments should never have to give in to deflation.

In more prosaic and realistic terms, a “helicopter drop” of money is an expansionary fiscal policy—an increase in public spending or a tax cut—financed by a permanent increase in the money stock.  To get away from the fanciful imagery, for the rest of this post I will call such a policy a Money-Financed Fiscal Program, or MFFP.

Milton Friedman,

Let us suppose now that one day a helicopter flies over this community and drops an additional $1,000 in bills from the sky, which is, of course, hastily collected by members of the community. Let us suppose further that everyone is convinced that this is a unique event which will never be repeated." (Milton Friedman, “The Optimum Quantity of Money,” 1969)