Myths and Realities of Negative Interest Rates

This bachelor's thesis examines the issue of negative interest rates with focus on its application within monetary policy. The theoretical part describes important interest rates and their interlinkages. Further it addresses the Taylor rule that often figures as an argument for their implementation. The last chapter mentions breakthrough theoretical opinions on the issue of negative nominal interest rates. The analytical part of the thesis focuses on the situations that would gain from the usage of negative interest rates. It deals with the problem of zero lower bound that hinders said usage and three main proposals how to deal with this problem. Following chapter describes the events of the past years particularly in Europe when the negative interest rates were used by central banks of Switzerland, Denmark and ECB. The closing chapters explain dangerous trends in the conditions of long lasting negative interest rates and obstacles in the legislation.