I have noticed that a increasing number of 1980s US supply siders are coming out views on US monetary policy which is very close to the Market Monetarist views. This is not really surprising if one studies what the supply siders were saying in the 80s, but it is nonetheless in stark contrast to the core views of today’s GOP.
A good example is Nobel laureate Bob Mundell who recently at a Heritage Foundation seminar gave a Market Monetarist explanation for the Great Depression: The Fed caused it.
The latest Reagan supply sider to come out with a market monetarist perspective on monetary policy is Bruce Bartlett.
See this the Bartlett’s interview on CNBC here in which he calls for the Federal Reserve to implement a nominal GDP target.
PS David Beckworth has a much more clever comment on Bartlett.
Benjamin Cole
/ October 14, 2011Bartlett once penned (digitized) a piece recognizing Sumner as a mover not only of what we now call market monetarism, but as someone who moved the debate about economic policy from stodgy journals to the blogosphere, where it has become a much more rapid and robust debate.
I encourage Lars and others to reach out to the Bartletts and whoever. There is a knee-jerkism against monetary stimulus deep within the GOP soul, (and sadly, the Dems jeep talking about fiscal stimulus).
But if we can get the GOP on board by emphasizing the lack of fiscal outlays….thus lower taxes…..
BTW it is Bartlett not Barlett