Author Archives: John Taylor
Shoven Says: Defer Social Security Benefits
John Shoven’s practical advice on when people should start taking Social Security benefits is rightly getting increased attention. The economics is quite straight forward, and baby boomers should pay careful attention. So should the Social Security Administration. This table from John’s Policy … Continue reading
Posted in Fiscal Policy and Reforms
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The Raisin Reserve: On the Way Out?
For many years I have used the California raisin market as an illustration of the effects of government intervention, even dressing up as a California raisin and dancing, as in the famous advertisement, to Marvin Gayes’ “Heard It through the … Continue reading
Posted in Regulatory Policy
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Thanks for the Teaching Moment, Governor
Showing students how to analyze price floors and ceilings with the supply and demand model is an important part of the principles of economics course. That was the scheduled topic for us in the course today and Governor Jerry Brown … Continue reading
Posted in Regulatory Policy
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A New Economics 1 at Stanford
Tomorrow Stanford embarks on a new principles of economics course at the introductory level. For the first time since the financial crisis we will be teaching the course in one term. I will be doing the inaugural course consisting of … Continue reading
Posted in Teaching Economics
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Fed Policy: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Last week I was invited by Macroeconomic Advisers to participate in their interesting annual Washington Policy Seminar, and to be on a panel with Larry Meyer. They called the panel: “Fed Policy: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.” So … Continue reading
Posted in Monetary Policy
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Debt Explosion Unchanged: Looks the Same as Five Years Ago
The CBO’s 2013 Long-Term Budget Outlook released this week made a lot of news because it appeared to paint a new and surprisingly bleak budget picture. But in reality, the budget outlook is little changed from CBO’s long-term budget outlook … Continue reading
Posted in Budget & Debt
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With Better Policy, the Recovery Could Have Been V-Shaped
Some are still arguing that the prolonged slow recovery from the deep recession of 2007-09 was to be expected. Fast rebounds, or V-shaped recoveries, are a thing of the past, they argue, citing the recovery from the 2001 recession as … Continue reading
Posted in Slow Recovery
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Four Posts Within a Post Remembering 9/11
Here are four posts recalling life in the U.S. Treasury on 9/11 and afterwards Flying Back to Treasury on 9/11: I was in a hotel room in Tokyo when the first plane hit the World Trade Center, recently sworn in … Continue reading
Posted in International Economics
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My Take on the Middle-Out View
Here is my Wall Street Journal column. If you’re interested in the of path of incomes year by year, the chart below shows real income growth for the 90% and 10% income groups. The data come from Emanuel Saez’s web … Continue reading
Posted in Regulatory Policy, Slow Recovery
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A Monetary Policy Rule That Works: Powerful New Evidence
In a recent paper (summarized here) Alex Nikolsko-Rzhevskyy, David Papell, and Ruxandra Prodan applied statistical tests to identify periods in recent U.S. history when Fed policy was “rules-based”—which they define in practice as Taylor rule periods—and periods when it was … Continue reading
Posted in Monetary Policy
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Economics One 