These are not isolated occurrences. The first instances of modern negative interest rates arrived in Switzerland in the 1970s. As Bloomberg Opinion Columnist Stephen Mihm recently detailed, the results were not pretty.
The U.S., UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand are the only developed bond markets that do not have negative rates anywhere on their yield curves. Should these countries join the rest of the developed world in moving to negative rates, the financial system will be under much more stress. If negative rates become more widespread across the globe, then the financial system needs to be rebuilt on a new set of assumptions. The problem is we do not yet know what those should be or how they would work.
This article provided by Bloomberg News.