Category Archives: Monetary Policy

At yesterday’s hearing before the Senate Banking Committee, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke talked about monetary policy rules in response to a series of questions by Senator Pat Toomey. First, the Chairman stated that the Taylor Rule calls for interest rates … Continue reading →

The Atlanta Fed, through its “macroblog,” has joined the discussion about reform of the Federal Reserve. It’s a good discussion to have. David Altig, Senior Vice President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta and main blogger, wrote the latest … Continue reading →

Following the financial crisis, it is understandable that central bankers want better advice from economists and their economic theories, as Mojmir Hampl of the Czech central bank writes this week in the European Opinion section of the Wall Street Journal. … Continue reading →

The Wall Street Journal’s choice of a headline for my op-ed last Friday “A Two-Track Plan to Restore Growth,” was a great way to pair the proposed fiscal reform with the proposed monetary reform. The Congress and the President would … Continue reading →

The phrase in the headline above concludes Amity Shlaes’s “amazingly thorough” article (quoting AEA President Orley Ashenfelter here) on the long cyclical swings between rules and discretion which I documented in a speech at the annual AEA-AFA luncheon in Denver … Continue reading →

Dan Thornton of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis just completed a very revealing paper called What Does the Change in the FOMC’s Statement of Objectives Mean? in which he traces FOMC references to the Fed’s mandate over many … Continue reading →

A few weeks ago Paul Ryan and I wrote an article proposing changes in the Federal Reserve Act. One change would require the Fed to focus on “the single goal of long-run price stability within a clear framework of overall … Continue reading →

According to the federal funds futures market, the Fed will begin raising rates sometime next year—with the federal funds rate reaching about ½ percent by December 2011. In fact, rising rates next year has been the implicit forecast of the … Continue reading →

Today Congressman Paul Ryan and I published an article explaining the rationale for a reform of the Federal Reserve Act to establish a single “goal of long-term price stability within a framework of economic stability, including clear reporting and accountability … Continue reading →

In a speech in Washington last week I made a proposal to restore the legislative requirement that the Fed report and be accountable for its strategy for monetary policy. Such a requirement was the law throughout the 1980s and 1990s, … Continue reading →