Over the course of the past decade, the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the fear of a repeat of the 1930 Great Depression had led to the globally concerted efforts by all the major central banks to pursue the unprecedented monetary measures of quantitative easing (QE) and near zero or below zero interest rates.

Despite the huge sacrifice to the tune of trillions of dollars pumped into the financial system by taxpayers, the past decade was known or labelled as The Advanced Economies’ Lost Decade.

…Christopher H. Lim is a Senior Fellow and Vincent Mack is an Associate Research Fellow in the Office of the Executive Deputy Chairman, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. This is the first in a series on the Unintended Consequences of Quantitative Easing.