Author Archives: John Taylor
Who and What is to Blame for the Global Turbulence
The recent large impact of U.S. monetary policy on the rest of the world–especially emerging markets–has understandably been attracting a lot of attention in financial markets with headlines like: Fear of Fed Retreat Roils India, WSJ, Aug 20 Istanbul Skyline … Continue reading
Posted in International Economics
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What to Call This Very Slow Recovery?
Economists love the word “Great” for significant economic events—such as The Great Depression—probably using it too much. I’m as guilty as anyone. I used the terms Great Inflation and Great Disinflation for the late 1960s and 1970s inflation and its … Continue reading
Posted in Slow Recovery
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Economics One for Preschoolers
Meghan Cox Gurdon has a nice review article in the Wall Street Journal celebrating Richard Scarry’s books for children. This is the 50th anniversary of “Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever.” I’ve been reading some of Scarry’s books to my … Continue reading
Posted in Teaching Economics
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Crawling Along
It wasn’t any fun updating my charts this morning with the new data released this week. None of the charts looked better and some looked worse. The EKG chart showing real GDP growth quarter-by-quarter over the decades remains as tragic … Continue reading
Posted in Slow Recovery
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Don Kohn on Rules-Based Monetary Policy
President Obama just widened the race for Fed chair. Up on Capitol Hill he mentioned Don Kohn along with Larry Summers and Janet Yellen. So we should widen the hunt for things that Don has said that help answer the … Continue reading
Posted in Monetary Policy
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Policy Uncertainty Makes Firms Reluctant to Hire: New Evidence
I have been arguing that economic policy–in particular policy unpredictability or uncertainty–has been a factor in the slow recovery. That’s the main theme of the book I edited with Lee Ohanian and Ian Wright. A chapter by Scott Baker, Nick … Continue reading
Posted in Slow Recovery
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About Rules-Based Monetary Policy: Summers versus Yellen
The financial press has narrowed down the race for the next Fed Chair to Larry Summers and Janet Yellen. Though there are other candidates with Democratic credentials, such as Alan Blinder and Tim Geithner, most stories are about a pairwise … Continue reading
Posted in Monetary Policy
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The Apple E-book Price Fixing Case: A Teaching Moment
The recent Apple e-book prize-fixing case made surprisingly little news, but it’s a very interesting example for teaching (in Economics 1 or other courses) about market power, pricing, and antitrust policy. It is also a fascinating story involving behind the … Continue reading
Posted in Regulatory Policy
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Cross-Checking “Checking in on the Taylor Rule”
In Jared Bernstein’s interesting recent piece “Checking in on the Taylor Rule and the Fed,” he writes that the federal funds rate has been “camping out at between -1 and -2 percent” according to the Taylor Rule. He then goes … Continue reading
Posted in Monetary Policy
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Paul Krugman in South Park
Some of the points Paul Krugman makes in his response to my article in today’s Wall Street Journal criticizing unconventional monetary policy are irrelevant. The others are wrong. First, he goes after other people who are critical of the unconventional policy, as … Continue reading
Posted in Monetary Policy
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Economics One 