Author Archives: John Taylor
MacroMania on Nominal GDP Targeting and the Taylor Rule
David Andolfatto has a interesting technical piece on MacroMania called “Nominal GDP Targeting and the Taylor Rule” in which he derives a relationship between the two, following up on a point by Chris Waller, director of research at the St. Louis Fed. … Continue reading
Posted in Monetary Policy
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Toward Free Exchange Rather Than Capital Controls
In Capital Controls: Against the Tide, the Economist’s Free Exchange (R.A.) described this week how macroeconomists are getting more and more comfortable with the idea of capital controls. Unfortunately, it’s true. One sign of this trend is that capital controls have … Continue reading
Posted in International Economics
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Detecting the Source of Our Recent Poor Economic Performance
I have been arguing that highly discretionary (versus rules-based) macro policy provides the best explanation for generally poor macroeconomic performance, such as recent years, in comparison with periods of good performance, such as the 1980s and 1990s. This was the … Continue reading
Posted in Financial Crisis, Monetary Policy, Slow Recovery
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Teaching about Ronald Coase and Private Remedies in Economics 1
While reading articles today (NYT, WSJ,…) about Ronald Coase, who died yesterday at the age of 102, I am reminded about how much I have enjoyed over the years explaining his famous ideas to beginning students in my Economics 1 lectures. … Continue reading
Posted in Regulatory Policy
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Education Performance for Minorities: California vs. Texas and Elsewhere
I have heard more people talk about leaving California this year than at any other time in the past three decades, and I know quite a few who have already left, several for the second biggest population state, Texas, but … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
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A Crisis May Be Worst Time to Deviate from Rules
In the Money interview with me which Melissa Francis posted yesterday she delved into two of my First Principles—the importance of the rule of law and rules-based policy—pointing out that many people argue that in an economic crisis we need to suspend the rules … Continue reading
Posted in Financial Crisis
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Say No To Macro-Prudential Fine-Tuning
In an article in the Wall Street Journal John Cochrane raises serious doubts about recent “macro-prudential” policy proposals. I hope the Fed listens. The Bank of England has already started in this direction with its new Financial Policy Committee planning to … Continue reading
Posted in Regulatory Policy
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Jackson Hole: Then and Now
Quite a few people expressed interest in my tweet on the very high ratio of men to women at the 1982 Jackson Hole conference: 23 to 1. A CNN Money story and Justin Wolfers tweet reported 6 to 1 this year. Some … Continue reading
Posted in Monetary Policy, Teaching Economics
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Forward Guidance as an Incipient Policy Rule at the BoE and ECB
At the Jackson Hole conference this weekend, Charlie Bean, deputy governor of the Bank of England, and Frank Smets, head of economic research at the European Central Bank both offered important and newsworthy clarifications of what their respective central banks … Continue reading
Posted in Monetary Policy
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Day 1 Papers at Jackson Hole Reveal Skepticism of Fed’s Unconventional Policy
The papers presented today (Day 1) at the Jackson Hole monetary conference by academics outside the Fed revealed considerable skepticism about the effectiveness of the Fed’s quantitative easing and forward guidance programs. Of course Fed officials did not express the same … Continue reading
Posted in Monetary Policy
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Economics One 