Which of these statements about liquidity traps is false? Firms are unlikely to undertake investment during liquidity traps because interest rates are prohibitively high. The United States probably experienced a liquidity trap during the Great Depression. The zero bound of interest rates prevents policy makers from taking some actions that could stimulate economic growth. Expansionary monetary policy is difficult to achieve.

The liquidity trap is a situation described in the Keynesian economy according to which, liquidity injections into the private banking system by the central bank do not lower interest rates or inject money into the economy and therefore do not stimulate economic growth as claimed by monetarism.

The liquidity trap occurs when people accumulate cash because they expect an adverse event, such as deflation, reduction in aggregate demand and GDP, an increase in the unemployment rate or a war. People are not buying, companies are not borrowing and banks are not lending either because they do not have enough solvency since the economic outlook is uncertain and investors do not invest because the expected returns on investments are low.

The most common characteristics of a liquidity trap are interest rates close to zero and fluctuations in the monetary base that do not translate into fluctuations in general price levels.