page_title: Helicopter money
section_title: Critics
hierarchical_section_title: Helicopter money / Critics
caption_attribution_description: Nederlands: Een voorbeeld van hyperinflatie in Duitsland in de crisisjaren.
context_page_description: Helicopter money is a proposed unconventional monetary policy, sometimes suggested as an alternative to quantitative easing when the economy is in a liquidity trap. Although the original idea of helicopter money describes central banks making payments directly to individuals, economists have used the term 'helicopter money' to refer to a wide range of different policy ideas, including the 'permanent' monetization of budget deficits – with the additional element of attempting to shock beliefs about future inflation or nominal GDP growth, in order to change expectations. 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 name "helicopter money" was first coined by Milton Friedman in 1969, when he wrote a parable of dropping money from a helicopter to illustrate the effects of monetary expansion.
caption: Hyperinflation in Germany in 1923
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