All posts in category Federal Reserve

Monetary policy can’t fix all problems

You say that when you have a hammer everything looks like a nail. Reading the Market Monetarist blogs including my own one could easing come to the conclusion that we are the “hammer boys” that scream at any problem out there “NGDP targeting will fix it!” However, nothing can be further from the truth.

Unlike keynesians Market Monetarists do think that monetary policy should be used to “solve” some problems with “market failure”. Rather we believe that monetary policy should avoid creating problems on it own. That is why we want central banks to follow a clearly defined policy rule and as we think recessions as well as bad inflation/deflation (primarily) are results of misguided monetary policies rather than of market failures we don’t think of monetary policy as a hammer.

Rather we believe in Selgin’s Monetary Credo:

“The goal of monetary policy ought to be that of avoiding unnatural fluctuations in output…while refraining from interfering with fluctuations that are “natural.” That means having a single mandate only, where that mandate calls for the central bank to keep spending stable, and then tolerate as optimal, if it does not actually welcome, those changes in P and y that occur despite that stability“

So monetary policy determines nominal variables – nominal spending/NGDP, nominal wages, the price level, exchange rates and inflation. We also clearly acknowledges that monetary policy can have real impact – in the short-run the Phillips curve is not vertical so monetary policy can push real GDP above the structural level of GDP and reduce unemployment temporarily. But the long-run Phillips curve certainly is vertical. However, unlike Keynesians we do not see a need to “play” this short-term trade off. It is correct that NGDP targeting probably also would be very helpful in a New Keynesian world, however, we are not starting our analysis at some “social welfare function” that needs to be maximized – there is not a Phillips curve trade off on which policy makers should choose some “optimal” combination of inflation and unemployment – as for example John Taylor basically claims. In that sense Market Monetarists certainly have much more faith in the power of the free market than John Talyor (and that might come to a surprise to conservative and libertarian critics of Market Monetarism…).

What we, however, do indeed argue is that if you commit mistakes you fix it yourself and that also goes for central banks. So if a central bank directly or indirectly (through it’s historical actions) has promised to deliver a certain nominal target then it better deliver and if it fails to do so it better correct the mistake as soon as possible. So when the Federal Reserve through its actions during the Great Moderation basically committed itself and “promised” to US households, corporations and institutions etc. that it would deliver 5% NGDP growth year in and year out and then suddenly failed to so in 2008/9 then it committed a policy mistake. It was not a market failure, but rather a failure of monetary policy. That failure the Fed obviously need to undo. So when Market Monetarists have called for the Fed to lift NGDP back to the pre-crisis trend then it is not some kind of vulgar-keynesian we-will-save-you-all policy, but rather it is about the undoing the mistakes of the past. Monetary policy is not about “stimulus”, but about ensuring a stable nominal framework in which economic agents can make their decisions.

Therefore we want monetary policy to be “neutral” and therefore also in a sense we want monetary policy to become invisible. Monetary policy should be conducted in such a way that investors and households make their investment and consumption decisions as if they lived in a Arrow-Debreu world or at least in a world free of monetary distortions. That also means that the purpose of monetary policy is NOT save investors and other that have made the wrong decisions. Monetary policy is and should not be some bail out mechanism.

Furthermore, central banks should not act as lenders-of-last-resort for governments. Governments should fund its deficits in the free markets and if that is not possible then the governments will have to tighten fiscal policy. That should be very clear. However, monetary policy should not be used as a political hammer by central banks to force governments to implement “reforms”. Monetary policy should be neutral – also in regard to the political decision process. Central banks should not solve budget problems, but central banks should not create fiscal pressures by allowing NGDP to drop significantly below the target level. It seems like certain central banks have a hard time separating this two issues.

Monetary policy should not be used to puncture bubbles either. However, some us – for example David Beckworth and myself – do believe that overly easy monetary policy under some circumstances can create bubbles, but here it is again about avoiding creating problems rather about solving problems. Hence, if the central bank just targets a growth path for the NGDP level then the risk of bubbles are greatly reduced and should they anyway emerge then it should not be task of monetary policy to solve that problem.

Monetary policy can not increase productivity in the economy. Of course productivity growth is likely to be higher in an economy with monetary stability and a high degree of predictability than in an economy with an erratic conduct of monetary policy. But other than securing a “neutral” monetary policy the central bank can not and should not do anything else to enhance the general level of wealth and welfare.

So monetary policy and NGDP level targeting are not some hammers to use to solve all kind of actual and perceived problems, but  who really needs a hammer when you got Chuck Norris?

——
Marcus Nunes has a related comment, but from a different perspective.

13 Comments
by Lars Christensen on December 22, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Bubbles, Chuck Norris, Chuck Norris Effect, David Beckworth, Federal Reserve, Financial markets, George Selgin, MM Research agenda, Monetary institutions, Monetary policy, NGDP Targeting, Nominal Income Targeting, Selgin's Monetary Credo
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Posted by Lars Christensen on December 22, 2011

https://marketmonetarist.com/2011/12/22/monetary-policy-cant-fix-all-problems/

Scott is right: Recessions are always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon – just look at QRPI

Scott Sumner has a couple of fascinating posts on recessions on his blog (see here and here).

Scott argues strongly that recessions are a result of nominal shocks rather than real shocks. Scott uses an innovative measure to identify US recessions since 1948. Scott claims that the US economy can be said to be in recession if the unemployment rate increases by 0.6% or more over a 12 months period. That gives 11 recessions since 1948 in the US.

I have compared the timing of these recessions with my measure of “demand inflation” based on my Quasi-Real Price Index (QRPI). If Scott is right that nominal shocks are the key (the only?) driver of recessions then there should be a high correlation between demand inflation and recessions.

The correlation between the two measures is remarkably strong. Hence, if we define a negative nominal shock as a drop in demand inflation below 0% then we have had 7 negative nominal shocks since 1948 in the US. They all coincide with the Sumner-recessions – both in timing and length.

The only four of Scott’s recessions not “captured” by the QRPI development are the recessions in 1970s and the 1980s where demand inflation (and headline inflation) was very high. Furthermore, it should be noted that in two out of four “unexplained” recessions demand inflation nonetheless dropped significantly – also indicating a negative nominal shocks. This basically means that 9 out of 11 recessions can be explained as being a result of nominal shocks rather than real shocks.

Hence, the evidence is very strong that if demand inflation drops below zero then the US economy will very likely enter into recession.

So yes, Scott is certainly right – recessions are always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon! (at least in 80%  of the time). So if the Fed want to avoid recessions then it should pursuit a target for 2% growth path for QRPI or a 5% growth path for NGDP!

1 Comment
by Lars Christensen on December 21, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in David Eagle, Deflation, Economic and monetary history, Federal Reserve, Inflation, MM Research agenda, Monetary policy, Monetary policy rules, Quasi-Real Indexing, Quasi-Real Price Index, Scott Sumner
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Posted by Lars Christensen on December 21, 2011

https://marketmonetarist.com/2011/12/21/scott-is-right-recessions-are-always-and-everywhere-a-monetary-phenomenon-just-look-at-qrpi/

US Monetary History – The QRPI perspective: 1970s

I am continuing my mini-series on US monetary history through the lens of my decomposition of supply inflation and demand inflation based on what I inspired by David Eagle have termed a Quasi-Real Price Index (QRPI). In this post I take a closer look at the 1970s.

The economic history of the 1970s is mostly associated with two major oil price shocks – OPEC’s oil embargo of 1973 and the 1979-oil crisis in the wake of the Iranian revolution. The sharp rise in oil prices in the 1970s is often mentioned as the main culprit for the sharp increase in US inflation in that period. However, below I will demonstrate that rising oil prices actually played a relatively minor role in the increase in US inflation in that period.

The graph below shows the decomposition of US inflation in 1970s. As I describe in my previous post demand inflation had already started to inch up in the second half of 1960s and was at the start of the 1970s already running at around 5%.

After a drop in demand inflation around the relatively mild 1969-70 recession demand inflation once again started to pick up from 1971 and reached nearly 10% at the beginning of 1973. This was well before oil prices had picked up. In fact if anything supply inflation helped curb headline inflation in 1970-71.

The reason for the drop in supply inflation might be partly explained by the Nixon administration’s use of price and wage controls to curb inflationary pressures. These draconian measures can hardly be said to have been successful and to the extent it helped curb inflation in the short-term it provided Federal Reserve chairman Arthur Burns with an excuse to allow the monetary driven demand inflation to continue to accelerate. It is well known that Burns – wrongly – was convinced that inflation primarily was a cost-push phenomenon and that he in the early 1970 clearly was reluctant to tighten monetary policy because he had the somewhat odd idea that if he tightened monetary policy it would signal that inflation was out control and that would undermine the wage controls. Robert Hetzel has a very useful discussion of this in his “The Monetary Policy of the Federal Reserve”.

As a result of Burn’s mistaken reluctance to tighten monetary policy demand inflation kept inching up and when then the oil crisis hit in 1974 headline inflation was pushed above 10%. However, at that point almost half of the inflation still could be attributed to demand inflation and hence to overly loose monetary policies.

Headline inflation initially peaked in 1974 and as oil prices stopped rising headline inflation gradually started to decline. However, from 1976 demand inflation again started inching and that pushed up headline inflation once again.

In 1979 Paul Volcker became Federal Reserve chairman and initiated the famous Volcker disinflation. Scott Sumner has argued that Volcker didn’t really tighten monetary policy before 1981. I agree with Scott that that is the conclusion that if you look at market data such as bond yields and the US stock market. Both peaked in 1981 rather than 1979 indicating that Volcker didn’t really initiate monetary tightening before Ronald Reagan became president in 1981. However, my measure for demand inflation tells a slightly different story.

Hence, demand inflation actually peaked already in the first quarter of 1979 and dropped more than 5%-point over the next 12 month. However, as demand inflation started to decline the second oil crisis of the decade hit and that towards 1980 pushed headline US inflation up towards 13%.

So there is no doubt that rising oil prices indeed did contribute to inflation in the US in the 1970s, however, my decomposition of the inflation data clearly shows that the primary reason for the high and increase through the decade was the Federal Reserve’s overly loose monetary policy.

Finally it should be noted that the 1970s-data show some strength and weaknesses in my decomposition method. It is clearly a strength that the measure shows the impact of the oil price shocks, but it is also notable that these shocks takes 3-4 years to play out. So while oil prices spiked fast in for example 1974 and then settle at a higher level the supply shock to inflation seems to be more long lasting. This indicates some stickiness in prices that my decomposition method does not fully into account. As one of my commentators “Integral” has noted in an earlier comment it is a weakness with this decomposition method that it does not take into account the upward-sloping short-run AS curve, but rather it is assumed that all supply shocks shifts the vertical long-run AS curve left and right. I hope I will be able to address this issue in future posts.

In my next post I will have a closer look at how Paul Volcker beat the “Great Inflation”.

2 Comments
by Lars Christensen on December 19, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in David Eagle, Economic and monetary history, Federal Reserve, Inflation, MM Research agenda, Monetary institutions, Monetary policy, Quasi-Real Indexing, Quasi-Real Price Index, Reading recommendations, Robert Hetzel, Scott Sumner
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Posted by Lars Christensen on December 19, 2011

https://marketmonetarist.com/2011/12/19/us-monetary-history-the-qrpi-perspective-1970s/

US Monetary History – The QRPI perspective: 1960s

In my previous post I showed how US inflation can be decomposed between demand inflation and supply inflation by using what I term an Quasi-Real Price Index (QRPI). In the coming posts I will have a look at use US monetary history through the lens of QRPI. We start with the 1960s.

In monetary terms the 1960s in some sense was a relatively “boring” decade in the sense that inflation remained low and relatively stable and growth – real and nominal – was high and relatively stable. However, the monetary policies in the US during this period laid the “foundation” for the high inflation of the 1970s.

In the first half of the 1960s inflation remained quite subdued at not much more than 1%, however, towards the end of the decade inflation started to take off.

What is remarkable about the 1960s is the quite strong growth in productivity that kept inflation in check. The high growth in productivity “allowed” for easier monetary policy than would otherwise have been the case an demand inflation accelerated all through the 1960s and towards the end of the decade demand inflation was running at 5-6% and as productivity growth eased off in 1966-67 headline inflation started to inch up.

In fact demand inflation was nearly as high in the later part of the 1960s in the US as was the case in the otherwise inflationary 1970s. In that sense it can said that the “Great Inflation” really started in 1960 rather than in the 1970s.

My favourite source on US monetary history after the second War World is Allan Meltzer’s excellent book(s) “A History of the Federal Reserve”. However, Robert Hetzel’s – somewhat shorter – book “The Monetary Policy of the Federal Reserve: A History” also is very good.

Both Meltzer and Hetzel note a number of key elements that were decisive for the conduct of monetary policy in the US in the 1960s. A striking feature during the 1960s was to what extent the Federal Reserve was very direct political pressure by especially the Kennedy and Johnson administrations on the Fed to ease monetary policy. Another feature was the most Federal Reserve officials did not share Milton Friedman’s dictum that inflation is a monetary phenomenon rather the Fed thinking was strongly Keynesian and so was the thinking of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors. As a consequence the Federal Reserve seemed to have ignored the rising inflationary pressures due to demand inflation and as such is fully to blame for the high headline inflation in the 1970. I will address that in my next post on US monetary history from an QRPI perspective.

1 Comment
by Lars Christensen on December 18, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in David Eagle, Federal Reserve, Inflation, MM Research agenda, Monetary policy, Quasi-Real Indexing, Quasi-Real Price Index, Reading recommendations, Robert Hetzel
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Posted by Lars Christensen on December 18, 2011

https://marketmonetarist.com/2011/12/18/us-monetary-history-the-qrpi-perspective-1960s/

“Monetary Policy, Financial Stability, and the Distribution of Risk”

I have recently been giving a lot of attention to the work of David Eagle and his Arrow-Debreu based analysis of monetary policy rules. This is because I think David’s work provides a microfoundation for Market Monetarism and adds new dimensions to the discussion about NGDP targeting – particularly in regard to financial stability.

I have now come across a paper that is using a similar model as David’s model. However, this might be a slightly more interesting for the conspiratorial types as this paper is written by a Federal Reserve economist – Evan F. Koeing of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

Here is that abstract of Koeing’s paper “Monetary Policy, Financial Stability, and the Distribution of Risk”:

“In an economy in which debt obligations are fixed in nominal terms, but there are otherwise no nominal rigidities, a monetary policy that targets inflation inefficiently concentrates risk, tending to increase the financial distress that accompanies adverse real shocks. Nominal- income targeting spreads risk more evenly across borrowers and lenders, reproducing the equilibrium that one would observe if there were perfect capital markets. Empirically, inflation surprises have no independent influence on measures of financial strain once one controls for shocks to nominal GDP.”

This paper obviously is highly relevant and as the euro crisis just keeps getting worse day-by-day we can always hope that some influential European policy makers read this paper.

After all the euro crisis is mostly a monetary crisis rather than a fiscal crisis – which David Beckworth forcefully demonstrates in a recent comment.

HT Arash Molavi Vasséi

7 Comments
by Lars Christensen on December 11, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Arash Molavi Vasséi, Banking crisis, David Beckworth, David Eagle, euro crisis, Federal Reserve, NGDP Targeting, Nominal Income Targeting
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Posted by Lars Christensen on December 11, 2011

https://marketmonetarist.com/2011/12/11/monetary-policy-financial-stability-and-the-distribution-of-risk/

“Fed greatly destabilized the U.S. economy”

As the European crisis just gets worse and worse I am reminded by what a clever man once said – he is that clever man Ben Bernanke in 2004:

“Some important lessons emerge from the story. One lesson is that ideas are critical. The gold standard orthodoxy, the adherence of some Federal Reserve policymakers to the liquidationist thesis, and the incorrect view that low nominal interest rates necessarily signaled monetary ease, all led policymakers astray, with disastrous consequences. We should not underestimate the need for careful research and analysis in guiding policy. Another lesson is that central banks and other governmental agencies have an important responsibility to maintain financial stability. The banking crises of the 1930s, both in the United States and abroad, were a significant source of output declines, both through their effects on money supplies and on credit supplies. Finally, perhaps the most important lesson of all is that price stability should be a key objective of monetary policy. By allowing persistent declines in the money supply and in the price level, the Federal Reserve of the late 1920s and 1930s greatly destabilized the U.S. economy and, through the workings of the gold standard, the economies of many other nations as well.”

I wonder what he is thinking of his colleagues in the ECB and about his own responsibilities today.

2 Comments
by Lars Christensen on November 16, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Banking crisis, Deflation, Economic and monetary history, Federal Reserve, Gold Standard, Monetary policy, The Great Depression
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Posted by Lars Christensen on November 16, 2011

https://marketmonetarist.com/2011/11/16/fed-greatly-destabilized-the-u-s-economy/

The Fed can save the euro

David Beckworth has a excellent comment on the correlation between NGDP in the US and the euro zone.

David shows that US NGDP growth leads NGDP growth in the euro zone. This means that if the Federal Reserve were to move to push NGDP back to the pre-crisis trend level then it would likely lead to a similar increase in the NGDP level in the euro zone.

Hence, if the Fed were to introduce a NGDP level target then because the US is a “global monetary superpower” then the ECB would effective be forced to do the same thing. Interestingly this would probably mean that the ECB would overshoot it’s 2% inflation in the short-run as NGDP shifts from on level to another. How would the ECB react to that? Well, first of all the EUR/USD would undoubtedly spike, which would curb short time inflationary pressures and the question is really whether the ECB would have time to do anything about the jump in NGDP. Paradoxically because the ECB is targeting future inflation then it could say “well, inflation is now at 5%, but that is really not something we can do anything about and inflation nonetheless be back to 2% once US NGDP settles down at the new (old) NGDP trend level so no tightening of monetary policy is needed”.

For now the ECB refuses any easing of monetary policy, but if the Fed were to act decisively then the ECB probably would import an easing of monetary policy – and that would probably save the euro. So please Ben can you help us?

Leave a comment
by Lars Christensen on November 15, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in David Beckworth, euro crisis, Federal Reserve, MM Research agenda, Monetary institutions, Monetary policy, Monetary policy rules, NGDP Targeting, Nominal Income Targeting, Reading recommendations, The euro, The Great Recession
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Posted by Lars Christensen on November 15, 2011

https://marketmonetarist.com/2011/11/15/the-fed-can-save-the-euro/

Repeating a (not so) crazy idea – or if Chuck Norris was ECB chief

Recently I in a post came up with what I described as a crazy idea – that might in fact not be so crazy.

My suggestion was based on what I termed the Chuck Norris effect of monetary policy – that a central banks can ease monetary policy without printing money if it has a credible target. The Swiss central bank’s (SNB) actions to introduce a one-sided peg for the Swiss franc against the euro have demonstrated the power of the Chuck Norris effect.

The SNB has said it will maintain the peg until deflationary pressures in the Swiss economy disappears. The interesting thing is that the markets now on its own is doing the lifting so when the latest Swiss consumer prices data showed that we in fact now have deflation in Switzerland the franc weakened against the euro because market participants increased their bets that the SNB would devalue the franc further.

In recent days the euro crisis has escalated dramatically and it is pretty clear that what we are seeing in the European markets is having a deflationary impact not only on the European economy, but also on the global economy. Hence, monetary easing from the major central banks of the world seems warranted so why do the ECB not just do what the SNB has done? For that matter why does the Federal Reserve, the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan not follow suit? The “crazy” idea would be a devaluation of euro, dollar, pound and yen not against each other but against commodity prices. If the four major central banks (I am leaving out the People’s Bank of China here) tomorrow announced that their four currencies had been devalued 15% against the CRB commodity index then I am pretty sure that global stock markets would increase sharply and the positive effects in global macro data would likely very fast be visible.

The four central banks should further announce that they would maintain the one-sided new “peg” for their currencies against CRB until the nominal GDP level of all for countries/regions have returned to pre-crisis trend levels around 10-15% above the present levels and that they would devalue further if NGDP again showed signs of contracting. They would also announce that the policies of pegging against CRB would be suspended once NGDP had returned to the pre-crisis trend levels.

If they did that do you think we would still talk about a euro crisis in two months’ time?

PS this idea is a variation of Irving Fisher’s compensated dollar plan and it is similar to the scheme that got Sweden fast and well out of the Great Depression. See Don Patinkin excellent paper on “Irving Fisher and His Compensated Dollar Plan” and Claes Berg’s and Lars Jonung’s paper on Swedish monetary policy in 1930s.

PPS this it not really my idea, but rather a variation of an idea one of my colleagues came up with – he is not an economist so that is maybe why he is able to think out of the box.

PPPS I real life I am not really a big supporter of coordinated monetary action and I think it has mostly backfired when central banks have tried to manipulate exchange rates. However, the purpose of this idea is really not to manipulate FX rates per se, but rather to ease global monetary conditions and the devaluation against CRB is really only method to increase money velocity.

11 Comments
by Lars Christensen on November 10, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Chuck Norris, Chuck Norris Effect, euro crisis, Exchange rate policy, Exchange rates, Fantasy, Federal Reserve, Gold Standard, Japan, MM Research agenda, Monetary policy, Monetary policy rules, NGDP Targeting, Nominal Income Targeting, The euro
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Posted by Lars Christensen on November 10, 2011

https://marketmonetarist.com/2011/11/10/repeating-a-not-so-crazy-idea-or-if-chuck-norris-was-ecb-chief/

George Selgin on Bernanke and NGDP targeting

Bill Woolsey has comment on Fed governor Ben Bernanke’s comment’s yesterday regarding NGDP targeting.

Here is what Bernanke said:

“So the fed’s mandate is, of course, a dual mandate. We have a mandate for both employment and for price stability. And we have a framework in place that allows us to communicate and to think about the two sides of that mandate. We talked yesterday about nominal GDP as an indicator, as an information variable, something to add to the list of variables that we think about. And it was a very interesting discussion. However, we think that within the existing framework that we have, which looks at both sides of the mandate, not just some combination of the two, we can communicate whatever we need to communicate about future monetary policy. So we are not contemplating at this time any radical change in framework. We are going to stay within the dual mandate approach that we’ve been using until this point.”

George Selgin who is one of the pioneers of NGDP targeting – even though we all know George prefers Free Banking – has a comment on Bill’s blog. I think George’s comment make a lot of sense:

“Right. BB doesn’t get it: nominal spending isn’t an indicator to be used in helping the Fed to regulate P and y. It is itself the very thing the Fed ought to regulate. The idea that Py is some sort of composite of two more “fundamental” variables, where the Fed is supposed to be concerned with the stability of each, is a crude fallacy. Neither stability of y nor that of P is desirable per se. Stability of Py, on the other hand–which is to say stability of nominal aggregate demand–is desirable in itself.”

Right on George! (for those not schooled in econ lingo P is prices and y is real GDP and Py obviously is nominal GDP).

9 Comments
by Lars Christensen on November 3, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Federal Reserve, Free Banking, George Selgin, Monetary institutions, Monetary policy, Monetary policy rules, NGDP Targeting, Nominal Income Targeting
Tagged , , , , , , ,

Posted by Lars Christensen on November 3, 2011

https://marketmonetarist.com/2011/11/03/george-selgin-on-bernanke-and-ngdp-targeting/

BREAKING NEWS!! Fed is now openly discussing NGDP targeting

This is huge news…more to come…

News updates

Marketwatch

And a bit of negative spin on the news from the Journal.

What can I say…WAUW! Good work Scott Sumner and all you other hard blogging Market Monetarists out there…

A month ago nobody was talking about NGDP targeting. Now it is all over the media – and any financial market participant who want to be on top of things will have to get used to talk about NGDP targeting. This is now a market theme.

And yes, yes I know this is just discussions and Bernanke is not on board – yet. Nonetheless I think Scott can be very proud today!

I have been saying we are in 1931 – European debt problems – but we are now moving towards 1933 when FDR de-pegged from gold. I guess the US now is in 1932 – maybe even late 1932.

PS I still think Bernanke needs to invite Scott for lunch…

4 Comments
by Lars Christensen on November 2, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Federal Reserve, NGDP Targeting, Nominal Income Targeting

Posted by Lars Christensen on November 2, 2011

https://marketmonetarist.com/2011/11/02/breaking-news-fed-is-now-openly-discussing-ngdp-targeting/

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