monetary policy

How important is Money in the Conduct of Monetary Policy?

I consider some of the leading arguments for assigning an important role to tracking the growth of monerary aggregates when making decisions about monetary policy. First,whether ignoring money means...

Adam Smith and Financial Regulation

Here’s a letter that I sent yesterday to the New York Times Book Review: Paul Barrett’s review of two books on today’s financial crisis is a verbal bubble inflated by its...

I Be Officially Right of Center Now?

As I am arguing on the same side as Henry Kaufman, and against the kind-hearted Mark Thoma, does the phrase "left-of-center" at the top of this blog have as much Memory Meaning as the Suzanne Vega...

Producing Assets Uses Resources that Could Have been Used to Produce Consumption Goods and Services

Here’s a letter that I sent yesterday to the Washington Post: Robert Samuelson writes that “Depression prevention means supporting consumption and asset markets” (”The next...

Sumner on monetary policy

This week’s EconTalk is Scott Sumner on monetary policy. Sumner argues that monetary policy was too restrictive in late 2008 and turned a mild recession into a doozy. I don’t agree yet...

Keynes on Mises — and on Himself

Here’s a letter that I sent this morning to the Wall Street Journal: Kudos to Mark Spitznagel for drawing attention to the important but neglected work of the late Ludwig von Mises (”The...

Krugman’s Faux History

Here’s a letter that I sent yesterday to the New York Times: Paul Krugman’s history of the Great Depression and his interpretation of today’s intellectual debate over that episode...

The Fed's attempt to assuage inflation fears that don't need assuaging

by RebeccaThere is no shortage of speeches by US central bankers these days. The following is an excerpt from a NY Times article that highlights the debate among key Fed officials about the speed and...

The Fed called a mulligan

by RebeccaEx post, it is obvious that the Fed was way too tight in the second half of 2008. To be sure, the FOMC was actively engaged in its standard easing policies; however, the Fed got the...

The Fed's moving target: NAIRU

by RebeccaNeal Soss and Henry Mo at Credit Suisse published a very interesting article, "Where is full employment in a more volatile macroeconomy?", where they argue that the natural (long run) rate...

Brad's Draft Lecture

Robert WaldmannBrad DeLong just posted a very interesting Draft Henry George lecture. It contains ideas which I haven't found written down before by Brad or by Krugman. I strongly recommend reading...