All posts in category Free Banking

Nixon was a crook and Arthur Burns was a failed central banker

Back from my trip to Riga and Stockholm and two books had arrived in the mail from Amazon.

The first one “Inside The Nixon Administration – the Secret Diary of Arthur Burns 1969-1974” (Edited by Robert Ferrell, 2010). The second one is Larry White’s “Free Banking in Britain” (yes, dear readers believe it or not I did not read it before…).

Obviously I have not read the two books yet, but they are in some odd way complementary – the one is about how central banking can become hugely politicized and the second is about how to avoid that the monetary regime is politicized.

I did peak a little into the pages of the Burns diary. Burns who of course was Federal Reserve governor while Nixon was US president wrote a diary with notes from all its meetings with Nixon. I must admit that I am in total shock about how extreme the polarization of the US monetary policy was in the Nixon years. The man surely was a crook. One of the worst. However, from the little I have read Burns diary also clearly shows how misguided his views of monetary policy were. Again and again the diary mentions how he think price and wage controls are necessary to curb inflation, while Nixon at the same time is demanding money printing to be stepped up. Surely a bizarre duo – one a failed economist and one a crook. Very scary indeed.

So what is the lesson? Politics and money is a deadly cocktail and that is why you want to restrict both central bankers and a politicians when it comes to monetary policy.

If any of my readers have read these books I would be very happy to hear your opinion about them.

 

5 Comments
by Lars Christensen on April 19, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Free Banking, Larry White, Monetary institutions, Reading recommendations, Uncategorized
Tagged , , ,

Posted by Lars Christensen on April 19, 2012

https://marketmonetarist.com/2012/04/19/nixon-was-a-crook-and-arthur-burns-was-a-failed-central-banker/

Is Market Monetarism just market socialism?

The short answer to the question in the headline is no, but I can understand if somebody would suspect so. I will discuss this below.

If there had been an internet back in the 1920s then the leading Austrian economists Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek would have had their own blogs and so would the two leading “market socialists” Oskar Lange and Abba Lerner and in many ways the debate between the Austrians and the market socialists in the so-called Socialist Calculation Debate played out as debate do today in the blogosphere.

Recently I have given some attention to the need for Market Monetarists to stress the institutional context of monetary institutions and I think the critique by for example Daniel Smith and Peter Boettke in their recent paper “Monetary Policy and the Quest for Robust Political Economy” should be taken serious.

Smith’s and Boettke’s thesis is basically that monetary theorists – including – Market Monetarists tend to be overly focused on designing the optimal policy rules under the assumption that central bankers acts in a benevolent fashion to ensure a higher good. Smith and Boettke argue contrary to this that central bankers are unlikely to act in a benevolent fashion and we therefore instead of debating “optimal” policy rules we instead should debate how we could ultimately limit central banks discretionary powers by getting rid of them all together. Said in another way – you can not reform central banks so they should just be abolished.

I have written numerous posts arguing basically along the same lines as Boettke and Smith (See fore example here and here). I especially have argued that we certainly should not see central bankers as automatically acting in a benevolent fashion and that central bankers will act in their own self-interests as every other individual. That said, I also think that Smith and Boettke are too defeatist in their assessment and fail to acknowledge that NGDP level targeting could be seen as step toward abolishing central banks altogether.

From the Smith-Boettke perspective one might argue that Market Monetarism really is just the monetary equivalent of market socialism and I can understand why (Note Smith and Boettke are not arguing this). I have often argued that NGDP targeting is a way to emulate the outcome in a truly competitive Free Banking system (See for example here page 26) and that is certainly a common factor with the market socialists of the 1920s. What paretian market socialists like Lerner and Lange wanted was a socialist planned economy where the allocation would emulate the allocation under a Walrasian general equilibrium model.

So yes, on the surface there as some similarities between Market Monetarism and market socialism. However, note here the important difference of the use of “market” in the two names. In Market Monetarism the reference is about using the market in the conduct of monetary policy. In market socialism it is about using socialist instruments to “copy” the market. Hence, in Market Monetarism the purpose is to move towards market allocation and about monetary policy not distorting relative market prices, while the purpose of market socialism is about moving away from market allocation. Market Monetarism provides an privatisation strategy, while market socialism provides an nationalisation strategy. I am not sure that Boettke and Smith realise this. But they are not alone – I think many NGDP targeting proponents also fail to see these aspects .

George Selgin – who certainly is in favour of Free Banking – in a number of recent papers (see here and here) have discussed strategies for central bank reforms that could move us closer to Free Banking. I think that George fully demonstrates that just because you might be favouring Free Banking and wanting to get rid of central banks you don’t have to stop reforms of central banking that does not go all the way.

This debate is really similar to the critique some Austrians – particular Murray Rothbard – had of Milton Friedman’s proposal for the introduction of school vouchers. Rothbard would argue that Friedman’s ideas was just clever socialism and would preserve a socialist system rather than break it down.

However, even Rothbard acknowledged in For a New Liberty that  Friedman’s school voucher proposal was “a great improvement over the present system in permitting a wider range of parental choice and enabling the abolition of the public school system” (I stole the quote from Bryan Caplan). Shouldn’t Free Banking advocates think about NGDP level targeting in the same way?

—-

Posts on central bank as (or not) central planning:

Maybe Scott should talk about Hayek instead of EMH
It’s time to get rid of the ”representative agent” in monetary theory
Guest blog: Central banking – between planning and rules
When central banking becomes central planning

18 Comments
by Lars Christensen on April 11, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Daniel Smith, Free Banking, George Selgin, MM Research agenda, Monetary institutions, Peter Boettke, Reading recommendations
Tagged , ,

Posted by Lars Christensen on April 11, 2012

https://marketmonetarist.com/2012/04/11/is-market-monetarism-just-market-socialism/

Counterfeiting, nazis and monetary separation

A couple of months ago a friend my sent me an article from the Guardian about how “Nazi Germany flooded Europe with fake British banknotes in an attempt to destroy confidence in the currency. The forgeries were so good that even German spymasters paid their agents in Britain with fake notes..The fake notes were first circulated in neutral Portugal and Spain with the double objective of raising money for the Nazi cause and creating a lack of confidence in the British currency.”

The article made me think about the impact of counterfeiting and whether thinking about the effects of counterfeiting could teach us anything about monetary theory. It should be stressed that my argument will not be a defense of counterfeiting. Counterfeiting is obviously fraudulent and as such immoral.

Thinking about the impact of counterfeiting we need to make two assumptions. First, are the counterfeited notes (and coins for the matter) “good” or not. Second what is the policy objective of the central bank – does the central bank have a nominal target or not.

Lets start out analyzing the case where the quality of the the counterfeited notes is so good that nobody will be able to distinguish them from the real thing and where the central bank has a clear and credible nominal target – for example a inflation target or a NGDP level target. In this case the counterfeiter basically is able to expand the money supply in a similar fashion as the central bank. Hence, effectively the nazi German counterfeiters in this scenario would be able to increase inflation and the level of NGDP in the UK in the same way as the Bank of  England. However, if the BoE had been operating an inflation target then any increase in inflation (above the inflation target) due to an increase in the counterfeit money supply would have lead the BoE to reduce the official money supply. Furthermore, if the inflation target was credible an increase in inflation would be considered to be temporary by market participants and would lead to a drop in money velocity (this is the Chuck Norris effect).

Hence, under a credible inflation targeting regime an increase in the counterfeit money supply would automatically lead to a drop in the official money supply and/or a drop in money-velocity and as a consequence it would not lead to an increase in inflation. The same would go for any other nominal target.

In fact we can imagine a situation where the entire official UK money supply would have been replaced by “nazi notes” and the only thing the BoE was be doing was to provide a credible nominal anchor. This would in fact be complete monetary separation – between the different functions of money. On the one hand the Nazi counterfeiters would be supplying both the medium of exchange and a medium for store of value, while the BoE would be supplying a unit of account.

Therefore the paradoxical result is that as long as the central bank provides a credible nominal target the impact of counterfeiting will be limited in terms of the impact on the economy. There is, however, one crucial impact and that is the revenue from seigniorage from iss uing money would be captured by the counterfeiters rather than by the central bank. From a fiscal perspective this might or might not be important.

Could counterfeiting be useful?

This also leads us to what surely is a controversial conclusion that a central bank, which is faced with a situation where there is strong monetary deflation – for example in the US during the Great Depression – counterfeiting would actually be beneficial as it would increase the “effective” money supply and therefore help curb the deflationary pressures. In that regard it would be noted that this case only is relevant when the nominal target – for example a NGDP level target or lets say a 2% inflation target is not seen to be credible.

Therefore, if the nominal target is not credible and there is deflation we could argue that counterfeiting could be beneficial in terms of hitting the nominal target. Of course in a situation with high inflation and no credible nominal target counterfeiting surely would make the inflationary problems even worse. This would probably have been the case in the UK during WW2 – inflation was high and there was not a credible nominal target and as such had the nazi counterfeiting been “successful” then it surely would have had a serious a negative impact on the British economy in the form of potential hyperinflation.

Monetary separation could be desirable – at least in terms of thinking about money

The discussion above in my view illustrates that it is important in separating the different functions of money when we talk about monetary policy and the example with perfect counterfeiting under a credible nominal target shows that we can imagine a situation where the provision of the unit of accounting is produced by a (monopoly) central bank, but where production the medium of exchange and storage is privatized. This is at the core of what used to be know as New Monetary Economics (NME).

The best known NME style policy proposal is the little understood BFH system proposed by Leland Yeager and Robert Greenfield. What Yeager and Greenfield basically is suggesting is that the only task the central bank should provide is the provision media of accounting, while the other functions should be privatised – or should I say it should be left to “counterfeiters”.

While I am skeptical about the practically workings of the BFH system and certainly is not proposing to legalise counterfeiting one should acknowledge that the starting point for monetary policy most be to provide the medium account – or said in another way under a monopoly central bank the main task of the central bank is to provide a numéraire. NGDP level targeting of course is such numéraire.

A more radical solution could of course be to allow private issuance of money denominated in the official medium of account. This effectively would take away the need for a lender of last resort, but would not be a full Free Banking system as the central bank would still set the numéraire, which occasionally would necessitate that the central bank issued its own money or sucked up privated issued money to ensure the NGDP target (or any other nominal target). This is of course not completely different from what is already happening in the sense the private banks under the present system is able to create money – and one can argue that that is in fact what happened in the US during the Great Moderation.

11 Comments
by Lars Christensen on April 8, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Chuck Norris Effect, Free Banking, General economic theory, Inflation, Inflation Targeting, Leland Yeager, MM Research agenda, Monetary institutions, NGDP Targeting, Nominal Income Targeting, The Great Depression, The Great Moderation, Transmission mechanism, Tyler Cowen
Tagged , , , , ,

Posted by Lars Christensen on April 8, 2012

https://marketmonetarist.com/2012/04/08/counterfeiting-nazis-and-monetary-separation/

Googlenomics and the popularity of Bitcoin

Lasse Birk Olesen’s guest post about Bitcoin inspired me to do a bit of Googlenomics. I simply had a look at searches in Google for ‘Bitcoin’ using Google Insight.

The “bubble” that Lasse talked about in 2011 is certainly also visible in google searches. Have a look on this graph.

Since June 2011 the search activity for Bitcoin, however, has gone down somewhat, but is still at a somewhat higher level than prior to the 2011 spike. So judging from a bit of Googlenomics Bitcoin is still alive – whether it is kicking is another question.

I am still not sure what to make of Bitcoin as an alternative currency. However, any monetary theorist should take the development in the Bitcoin market serious as it might tell us something about not only the Bitcoin itself, but also about the general monetary developments. It would for example be very interesting to see a study of what determines the exchange rate for Bitcoins against other currencies.

Furthermore, if anybody is aware of any serious academic studies of the Bitcoin market I would be very interesting in hearing from you (lacsen@gmail.com).

Everybody interested not only in Bitcoin, but more generally in what George Selgin has termed Quasi-Commodity money should have a look here. Scott Sumner as a somewhat different, but equally relevant in a post today.

I will not in anyway promise to give more attention to the Bitcoin phenomon. That is not the is not the purpose of my blog, but I do promise that to the extent that I think the Bitcoin market can teach us more about monetary theory and monetary policy in general I surely will follow up on these developments in the future.

1 Comment
by Lars Christensen on April 6, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Bitcoin, Free Banking, George Selgin, Googlenomics, Lasse Birk Olesen
Tagged , , , , ,

Posted by Lars Christensen on April 6, 2012

https://marketmonetarist.com/2012/04/06/googlenomics-and-the-popularity-of-bitcoin/

Lets concentrate on the policy framework

Here is Scott Sumner:

I’ve noticed that when I discuss economic policy with other free market types, it’s easier to get agreement on broad policy rules than day-to-day discretionary decisions.

I have noticed the same thing – or rather I find that when pro-market economists are presented with Market Monetarist ideas based on the fact that we want to limit the discretionary powers of central banks then it is much easier to sell our views than when we just argue for monetary “stimulus”. I don’t want central bank to ease monetary policy. I don’t want central banks to tighten monetary policy. I simply want to central banks to stop distorting relative prices. I believe the best way to ensure that is with futures based NGDP targeting as this is the closest we get to the outcome that would prevail under a truly free monetary system with competitive issuance of money.

I have often argued that NGDP level targeting is not about monetary stimulus (See here, here and here) and argued that NGDP level targeting is the truly free market alternative (see here).

This in my view is the uniting view for free market oriented economists. We can disagree about whether monetary policy was too loose in the US and Europe prior to 2008 or whether it became too tight in 2008/9. My personal view is that both US and European monetary policy likely was (a bit!) too loose prior to 2008, but then turned extremely tight in 2008/09. The Great Depression was not caused by too easy monetary policy, but too tight monetary policy. However, in terms of policy recommendations is that really important? Yes it is important in the sense of what we think that the Fed or the ECB should do right now in the absence of a clear framework of NGDP targeting (or any other clear nominal target). However, the really important thing is not whether the Fed or the ECB will ease a little bit more or a little less in the coming month or quarter, but how we ensure the right institutional framework to avoid a future repeat of the catastrophic policy response in 2008/9 (and 2011!). In fact I would be more than happy if we could convince the ECB and the Fed to implement NGDP level target at the present levels of NGDP in Europe and the US – that would mean a lot more to me than a little bit more easing from the major central banks of the world (even though I continue to think that would be highly desirable as well).

What can Scott Sumner, George Selgin, Pete Boettke, Steve Horwitz, Bob Murphy and John Taylor all agree about? They want to limit the discretionary powers of central banks. Some of them would like to get rid of central banks all together, but as long as that option is not on the table they they all want to tie the hands of central bankers as much as possible. Scott, Steve and George all would agree that a form of nominal income targeting would be the best rule. Taylor might be convinced about that I think if it was completely rule based (at least if he listens to Evan Koeing). Bob of course want something completely else, but I think that even he would agree that a futures based NGDP targeting regime would be preferable to the present discretionary policies.

So maybe it is about time that we take this step by step and instead of screaming for monetary stimulus in the US and Europe start build alliances with those economists who really should endorse Market Monetarist ideas in the first place.

Here are the steps – or rather the questions Market Monetarists should ask other free market types (as Scott calls them…):

1) Do you agree that in the absence of Free Banking that monetary policy should be rule based rather than based on discretion?

2) Do you agree that markets send useful and appropriate signals for the conduct of monetary policy?

3) Do you agree that the market should be used to do forecasting for central banks and to markets should be used to implement policies rather than to leave it to technocrats? For example through the use of prediction markets and futures markets. (See my comments on prediction markets and market based monetary policy here and here).

4) Do you agree that there is good and bad inflation and good and bad deflation?

5) Do you agree that central banks should not respond to non-monetary shocks to the price level?

6) Do you agree that monetary policy can not solve all problems? (This Market Monetarists do not think so – see here)

7) Do you agree that the appropriate target for a central bank should be to the NGDP level?

I am pretty sure that most free market oriented monetary economists would answer “yes” to most of these questions. I would of course answer “yes” to them all.

So I suggest to my fellow Market Monetarists that these are the questions we should ask other free market economists instead of telling them that they are wrong about being against QE3 from the Fed. In fact would it really be strategically correct to argue for QE3 in the US right now? I am not sure. I would rather argue for strict NGDP level targeting and then I am pretty sure that the Chuck Norris effect and the market would do most of the lifting. We should basically stop arguing in favour of or against any discretionary policies.

PS I remain totally convinced that when economists in future discuss the causes of the Great Recession then the consensus among monetary historians will be that the Hetzelian-Sumnerian explanation of the crisis was correct. Bob Hetzel and Scott Sumner are the Hawtreys and Cassels of the day.

11 Comments
by Lars Christensen on April 2, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Bob Murphy, Chuck Norris, Chuck Norris Effect, Evan Koeing, Free Banking, George Selgin, MM Research agenda, Monetary institutions, NGDP Targeting, Nominal Income Targeting, Peter Boettke, Robert Hetzel, Scott Sumner, Selgin's Monetary Credo, Steven Horwitz, The Great Recession
Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Posted by Lars Christensen on April 2, 2012

https://marketmonetarist.com/2012/04/02/lets-concentrate-on-the-policy-framework/

Guest post: Nick Rowe, Barter, and Free Banking (By Lee Kelly)

I have for some time wanted the young and talented Lee Kelly to write a guest post for The Market Monetarist. I am happy that he now has done so. Anybody who follows the market monetarist blogs will be familiar with Lee’s name and his always insightful comments.

So thank you Lee and I hope you in the future will write many more posts for my blog.

Lars Christensen

—————-

Guest post: Nick Rowe, Barter, and Free Banking

By Lee Kelly

Nick Rowe recently wrote about the increasing use of barter and makeshift monies during recessions. The market monetarist explanation for the last recession describes how attempts to engage in mutually beneficial exchange are frustrated by a shortage of money; this suggests that people would seek alternatives–such as barter and makeshift monies – to realise desired transactions. While such incentives would be expected to increase with the severity of the shortage, there are unfortunately too many other factors at play to draw precise quantitative predictions. That said, if there were no increase in barter or even a decrease, then I would tentatively consider the market monetarist explanation falsified, and it would require one heck of a good counterargument for me to reverse that judgement.

Alex Tabarrok has presented some evidence comparing the Great Depression and the recent recession. Evidence that barter and makeshift monies increased during the Great Depression is very strong–market monetarism passes the test. However, evidence regarding the last recession is less conclusive; there are suggestions of an increase in barter and makeshift monetary arrangements but nothing substantial.

Although I wouldn’t have expected anything comparable to the Great Depression, like Tabarrok, I’m surprised at just how weak of an effect appears to have been. My own observations are of a slight increase in barter, and the relative success of Bitcoin during the recession is suggestive, but there is little more than anecdotal evidence to go on for now. The evidence–or lack thereof–presented by Tabarrok should pose an interesting challenge to market monetarists.

In any case, my purpose here is actually to explain a little about the underlying theory of this explanation and how it dovetails with an arguments for free banking. An increasing use of barter and makeshift monies in during a shortage of money takes on a whole different meaning when viewed from the perspective of free market in money and banking. But first, let me try and keep everyone on the same page by clarifying just what is meant by a ‘shortage of money’ or an ‘excess demand for money’?

What is an Shortage or Excess Demand for Money?

The term ‘shortage’ has a precise meaning in economics. A shortage occurs when the market price of some good is below its equilibrium price. In such cases, there are more people willing to buy at the prevailing price than are willing to sell, leaving an excess demand. Holding supply and demand constant, the market normally clears such disequilibria by increasing prices until shortages are eliminated. However, a shortage may persist indefinitely when there is a price ceiling, i.e. an upper limit to some price usually mandated by a government. If the equilibrium price of some good is greater than its price ceiling, then rising prices are unable to entirely eliminate shortages.

Normally, when demand is frustrated by a price ceiling, the excess goes somewhere else. For example, a binding price ceiling on apples would frustrate demand, leaving some people who want to buy apples unable to find willing sellers at the prevailing price. What do people who want apples do instead? Maybe they buy pears, oranges, bananas, or whatever–probably something that serves a similar purpose. In any case, the excess demand for apples spills over into higher demand for other kinds of fruit.

Money is special. All else being equal, an increase in the demand for money is automatically a shortage of money. An excess demand for money cannot be cleared by increasing its price, because money doesn’t have a price of its own. To reach equilibrium, every other price must haphazardly grope its way there by a roundabout path of deflation. A shortage of money is unlike a shortage of anything else, because money is the medium of exchange. An excess demand for apples will probably just result in more spending on other fruit, but an excess demand for money results in less spending altogether. With an insufficient quantity of the medium of exchange to facilitate desired transactions, potential output is sacrificed–this manifests as the temporary lull in economic activity called a recession.

Barter and Makeshift Monies From a Free Banking Perspective

The relation between a shortage of money and barter is similar to the relation between a shortage of cars and cycling. Suppose the government imposes a binding price ceiling on cars and supply is elastic. While there will always be some driving and some cycling, the shortage of cars results in people cycling more than if the supply of and demand for cars were in equilibrium. However, cycling cannot substitute for all journeys that would otherwise be taken by car, and so those journeys simply never happen. Likewise, only a fraction of transactions frustrated by a shortage of money can be completed using substitutes like barter or makeshift monies.

What does this have to do with free banking? In a world where central banks operate an effective monopoly over money, there is only one monetary policy. If the central bank pursues bad monetary policy, then the economy is constantly rocked by surpluses or shortages of money. But what if people had a better alternative than barter or makeshift monies? What if there were multiple competing issuers of money? What if our eggs weren’t all in one basket?

Free banking theory envisions a world where each money issuer has their own “monetary policy”, and a shortage or surplus created by one issuer is a profit opportunity for all others. When attempts to engage in mutually beneficial exchange are frustrated by a shortage of money, then people will seek alternatives. In an ideal free banking scenario, those alternatives are readily available monies created by institutions poised to soak up any excess demand for money. A free banking system is, in this way, robust against errors of monetary policy that can devastate an economy dependent on a central bank.

No system is perfect, and I’m aware of the futility of advocating free banking. However, I’m very much in favour of theorising about free banking. It is often only when ideas are contrasted with alternatives that we tease out hidden assumptions. Insights that seem deep and elusive from one perspective can become trivial and obvious from another.

Normally, economists understand market failure and government intervention in the light of ideal markets, but all such norms are reversed when it comes to money and banking. Many insights that are hard to come with conventional thinking, such as nominal GDP targeting, are relatively straightforward when understood in the light of free banking. The idea that people will seek alternatives to a given money when it’s suffering from a shortage of surplus is not just implicit in free banking, but is at the the core of what it means for there to be monetary competition in the first place.

© Copyright (2012) Lee Kelly

10 Comments
by Lars Christensen on March 31, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Deflation, Free Banking, Guest blog, Guest post, Lee Kelly, Nick Rowe
Tagged , ,

Posted by Lars Christensen on March 31, 2012

https://marketmonetarist.com/2012/03/31/guest-post-nick-rowe-barter-and-free-banking-by-lee-kelly/

Military dictators are independent as well…

Over the last couple of decades independent central banks have become the norm and it is seen as dangerous if politicians threaten the independence of the central banks. Judging from the short-termism of politicians this in many ways makes perfectly good sense and any modern economist would acknowledge that central bank independence is a good way to ensure a rules based monetary policy – contrary to they discretionary monetary policies normally dominating politicized central banks.

I have long been a strong proponent of this mainstream view among economist and if you are going to have central banks then it is better that they are independent rather than an extended arm of the Finance Ministry. I normally I like to mention the Turkish central bank as an example of how the de-politicization of the central bank led to a marked drop in inflation and general significantly better performance for the Turkish economy over the past decade. However, I have increasingly come to question this view as I have come to think that independence often has to mean unaccountable.

We want independent central banks because we want to protect them from political interference when they are doing a task that they have been asked to do. We do not want central banks to be independent to do whatever the management of the central bank find in their own personal interest.

Imagine that the independent central bank of Phantasia (CBP) desired that the democratically elected government if Phantasia had moronic economic policies and as a consequence should be punished and that the best way to do this would be to cut the money base in half and throw the Phantasian economy in to deflationary depression. Would that be ok? Obviously not. 99% of all people would say that that is completely unacceptable haviour and that the CBP had misused its monetary monopoly.

So central bank independence should obviously not be interpreted as meaning that central banks can do whatever think is in their own subjective interest.

So obviously we only want central banks to be independent if they implement monetary policies that are in the interest of those who have given them this monopoly on monetary power. Therefore, central banks should be given a task to fulfill. Furthermore, you want the task given to the central bank to be easily controllable. Luckily it is easy to measure how far the central bank is from hitting nominal targets – for example an inflation target or a NGDP target or a exchange rate target for that matter.

What you don’t want is fuzzy and unclear targets because then you are clearly reducing the accountably and increasing the room for Phantasian style monetary policy. Even though most central banks in the Western world today have some kind of nominal targets they are rarely defined very clearly. Furthermore, performance pay is not widespread among central bankers – the New Zealand Reserve Bank is the only exception as far as I know. And when was the last time you heard of a central bank governor that was kicked out because he failed to hit the nominal target he promised to hit?

Therefore, if you want independence for central banks – which I continue to believe it the best solution if you are going to have a monetary monopoly – then you also want to make sure that you have the highest degree of accountability. Therefore, any central bank law should clearly stipulate what nominal target the central bank should aim at and what consequences it will have for the central bank management if these targets are no hit. Central banks can hit whatever nominal target they are ask to hit so the least you can ask them to do is to hit those targets and if they don’t hit the target it should have consequences.

George Selgin would of course tell us that the real problem is that central banks are given a monopoly in the first place – I find it hard to disagree, but I will leave that debate for another day…

UPDATE: Scott Sumner also has a comment on central bank accountability.

5 Comments
by Lars Christensen on March 28, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Fantasy, Free Banking, George Selgin, Monetary institutions
Tagged , ,

Posted by Lars Christensen on March 28, 2012

https://marketmonetarist.com/2012/03/28/military-dictators-are-independent-as-well/

NGDP level targeting – the true Free Market alternative

Tyler Cown a couple of days ago put out a comment on “Why doesn’t the right-wing favor looser monetary policy?”

Tyler has three answers to his own question:

1. There is a widespread belief that inflation helped cause the initial mess (not to mention centuries of other macroeconomic problems, plus the problems from the 1970s, plus the collapse of Zimbabwe), and that therefore inflation cannot be part of a preferred solution.  It feels like a move in the wrong direction, and like an affiliation with ideas that are dangerous.  I recall being fourteen years of age, being lectured about Andrew Dickson White’s work on assignats in Revolutionary France, and being bored because I already had heard the story.

2. There is a widespread belief that we have beat a lot of problems by “getting tough” with them.  Reagan got tough with the Soviet Union, soon enough we need to get tough with government spending, and perhaps therefore we also need to be “tough on inflation.”  The “turning on the spigot” metaphor feels like a move in the wrong direction.  Tough guys turn off spigots.

3. There is a widespread belief that central bank discretion always will be abused (by no means is this view totally implausible).  “Expansionary” monetary policy feels “more discretionary” than does “tight” monetary policy.  Run those two words through your mind: “expansionary,” and “tight.”  Which one sounds and feels more like “discretion”?  To ask such a question is to answer it.


There is a lot of truth in what Tyler is saying. I especially like #2. There seem especially among US conservative and libertarian intellectuals a need to be “tough”. The dogma seems to be “no pain, no gain”. This obviously is an idiotic position. It seems like the tough guys have forgotten that sometimes there are indeed gains to be made with little or no pain. Just remember what the supply siders like Arthur Laffer taught us – sometimes you can cut tax rates and increase revenues. In fact most market reforms are exactly about that – economists call it a Pareto improvement. Unlike other monetary policy rules NGDP level targeting can actually be shown to ensure Pareto optimality (yes, yes I know it is based on questionable theoretical assumptions…)

Even though I like Tyler’s explanations to his question I think there is one big problem with his comment and that is his premise that Market Monetarists are advocating “expansionary” monetary policy. We are not – at least I am not and I don’t think Scott Sumner is. I have again and again argued that NGDP level targeting is not about “stimulus” and it is certainly not discretionary. Rather NGDP level targeting is about ensuring that monetary policy is “neutral” and does not distort the price system.

As I have earlier argued that if the central bank is pursuing a policy of NGDP level targeting then (ideally) relatively prices would be unaffected by monetary policy and hence be equal to what they would have been in a pure barter economy.

This is what I have called 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“

Hence, what we line with George Selgin are arguing is the true Free Market alternative to the present monetary policy in for example the euro zone and the US. Contrary to for example the Taylor rule which anybody who has studied David Eagle or George Selgin would tell you is leading to distortions of relative prices. How can any conservative or libertarian advocate a monetary policy rule which distorts market prices?

Furthermore, Scott Sumner, Bill Woolsey and myself have suggested that not only should the central banks target the only non-distortionary policy rule (NGDP level targeting), but the central bank should also leave the implementation of this rule to the market through the use of predictions markets (e.g. NGDP futures). I have not seen conservative economists like John Taylor or Allan Meltzer showing such trust in the free market. (The gold bugs and Rothbard style Austrians do not even want to let the market decide on was level of reserves banks should hold…)

Of course there is a position which is even more Free Market and that is of course the Free Banking alternative. However, as I argued the Market Monetarist position and the Free Banking position are fundamentally not in conflict. In fact NGDP targeting could be seen as a privatisation strategy. Free Banking theorists like George Selgin of course understand this, but will John Taylor or Allan Meltzer go along with that idea? I think not…

But why do people get confused and think we want monetary stimulus? Well, it is probably partly our own fault because we argue that the present crisis particularly in the US and Europe is due to overly tight monetary policy and as a natural consequence we seem to be favouring “expansionary” monetary policy or “monetary stimulus”.  However, the point is that we argue that the ECB and Fed failed in 2008 and to a large extent have continued to fail ever since and that they need to undo their mistakes. But we mostly want the central bank to stop distorting relative prices and we would really just like to have a big nice “computer” called The Market to take care of the implementation of monetary policy. That is also what Milton Friedman favoured and what right-winger would be against that?

PS I assume that Tyler uses the term “right-winger” to mean somebody who is in favour of free markets. That is at least how I here use the term.

18 Comments
by Lars Christensen on February 22, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Bill Woolsey, ECB, Federal Reserve, Free Banking, George Selgin, Scott Sumner, Tyler Cowen
Tagged , , , ,

Posted by Lars Christensen on February 22, 2012

https://marketmonetarist.com/2012/02/22/ngdp-level-targeting-the-true-free-market-alternative/

What can Niskanan teach us about central bank bureaucrats?

 Numerous studies have shown that prediction markets performs remarkably well. For example prediction markets consistently beats opinion polls in predicting the outcome of elections. In general the wisdom of crowds is an extremely powerful tool for forecasting and there no doubt the markets are the best aggregators of information known to man.

Market Monetarists advocate using the power of prediction markets to guide monetary policy. Scott Sumner of course is advocating using NGDP futures in the implementation of monetary policy (as do I). Furthermore, I have advocated that central banks replace their internal macroeconomic forecasts with prediction markets and also that central banks could use Robin Hanson-style prediction markets to choose between different policy instruments in the implementation of monetary policy.

The advantages of using prediction markets are in my view so obvious that one can only wonder why prediction markets are not used more by policy makers – not only in monetary policy, but just think about the endless discussions about “climate change”. Why have policy makers not set-up prediction markets for the outcome of different “climate initiatives”? I think the explanation have to be found in public choice theory.

William Niskanen argues forcefully in his classic book on “Bureaucracy and Representative Government” (1971) that bureaucrats are no different from the rest of us – their actions are determined by what is in their own self-interest. Niskanen claims – and I think he is more or less right (I used to be civil servant) – that that implies that bureaucrats are maximizing budgets.

So how do bureaucrats maximize their department budgets? Well, it’s really simply – they use asymmetrical information. Take what is now called the Department of Homeland Security in the US. The job of the Department of Homeland Security’s is to monitor the risk of terror attacks on the US and implement policies to reduce the threat against “homeland security” (whatever that is…). If the Department of Homeland Security can convince the US taxpayers that the US faces a massive terror threat then the department is more likely to get allocated more funds. So if the Department of Homeland Security bureaucrats want to maximize their budget then it just have to convince the American public that the US faces a very large terror threat.

The average US taxpayer does not really have a large incentive to go out and find out how big the terror threat really is and remember as Bryan Caplan tells us that voters tend to be rationally irrational (they don’t really have an incentive to be rational in terms of political issues) and as a consequence the average US taxpayer would happily accept any assessment made by the Department of Homeland Security about the level of the terror threat. Hence, if the Department of Homeland Security overestimates the terror threat it will be able to increase its budget and as the Department has superior knowledge of the real threat level it can easily to do so. This of course is just an example and I have no clue whether the authorities are overestimating the terror threat (I am sure my US readers will be happy to tell me if this is the case).

Hence, a bureaucrat can according to Niskanen’s theory maximize its budgets by using asymmetrical information. However, there is a way around this and reduce the power of bureaucrats. It is really simple – we just introduce prediction markets.

Lets say that we set up one prediction market asking the following question: “Will more people die in terror attacks than in will die in drowning accidents in the US in 2012?”  – Then this “terror/drowning”-prediction could be used to allocate funds to the Department of Homeland Security. My guess is that we would be looking at major budget cuts at the Department of Homeland Security. What do you think?

Anyway, my concern is not really the Department of Homeland Security, but rather monetary policy. If you think that the bureaucrats at the US Department of Homeland Security would use asymmetrical information to increase their budgets what do you think central banks around the world would do? Why would you expect central bank’s to pursue any given economic target in the conduct of monetary policy? And why would you trust the central banks to produce unbiased forecasts etc.?

Why is it for example that the Federal Reserve is so reluctant to formulate a clear nominal target? Could it be that it would not be in the bureaucratic interest of the institution? Could it be that central bank bureaucrats are afraid that they would be held accountable if they miss their target?

I don’t know if it is so, but if not then why not just formulate a clear and measurable nominal target? For example a target to increase nominal GDP by 10% by the end of 2013? And why not then use the opportunity to set up a NGDP futures markets? And why not let prediction markets take care of the Fed’s forecasts?

I am not saying that Ben Bernanke and his colleagues are Niskanen style bureaucrats, but if they want to prove that they are not then I am sure that Scott Sumner or Robin Hanson will be happy to advise them on setting up a NGDP futures market (or any other prediction market).

Of course the US Congress (or whoever is in charge) could also just regulate the FOMC member’s salaries based on their ability to hit a given target…

PS The so-called Policy Analysis Market (PAM) actually was meant to be used to among other thing assess the global terror threat. The project was shot down after political criticism of the project.

PPS our friend Scott Sumner is not all about monetary policy – he has also done research on how to use Prediction Markets to Guide Global Warming Policy.

PPS George Selgin would of course tell us that there is an even better solution to the “central-bankers-as-budget-maximizing-bureaucrats”-problem…

10 Comments
by Lars Christensen on February 16, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve, Free Banking, George Selgin, MM Research agenda, Monetary institutions, Prediction markets, Robin Hanson, Scott Sumner
Tagged , , , , , ,

Posted by Lars Christensen on February 16, 2012

https://marketmonetarist.com/2012/02/16/what-can-niskanan-teach-us-about-central-bank-bureaucrats/

Selgin on Quasi-Commodity Money (Part 1)

George Selgin just send me his new paper on what he has termed Quasi-Commodity Money. George spoke briefly on this topic in his recent presentation at the Italian Free Market think tank the Bruno Leoni Institute. See my comment here on the presentation and my review on a related paper – “L Street – Selgin’s prescription for Money Market reform”

Over at Freebanking.org George is complaining that he does not have enough time for blogging. Unfortunately I am in slightly the same situation. Greece is on the verge of default and so it is busy, busy times in the financial sector and I have promised to write a paper on monetary explanations for the Great Depression for the Danish libertarian journal the Libertas magazine and also need to write a preview for the republished version of the Danish translation of Milton Friedman’s “Free to Choose” (Remember uncle Milt would have turned 100 this year). And then I need to review a couple of books for another magazine. So yes I share George’s frustration about not having enough time for everything. Therefore, I will not write a review of George’s paper today. However, I do promise to do that very soon as I know that what George has to say always is interesting and important.

Until then here is the abstract of George’s paper:

“This paper considers reform possibilities posed by a type of base money that has heretofore been overlooked in the literature on monetary economics. I call this sort of money ‘quasi-commodity money’ because it shares features with both commodity money and fiat money, as these are usually defined, without fitting the conventional definition of either; examples of such money are Bitcoin and the ‘Swiss dinars’ that served as the currency of northern Iraq for over a decade. I argue that the attributes of quasi-commodity money are such as might supply the basis for a monetary regime that does not require oversight by any monetary authority, yet is capable of providing for all such changes in the money stock as may be needed to achieve a high degree of macroeconomic stability.”

As I will not be reviewing the paper this week but hopefully next week I would like to hear what my readers make of George’s paper – I know I will probably be convinced that George’s concept is correct once I have read the paper, but will my readers be as well?

9 Comments
by Lars Christensen on February 7, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Free Banking, George Selgin, Quasi-Commodity Money
Tagged , ,

Posted by Lars Christensen on February 7, 2012

https://marketmonetarist.com/2012/02/07/selgin-on-quasi-commodity-money-part-1/

« Older Posts
Newer Posts »