All posts in category Monetary policy

William Niskanen 1933-2011

William Niskanen passed away on October 26. I have always admired Niskanen a lot. He was a champion of liberty and a great economist.

Any student of Public Choice theory would know Niskanen’s classic Bureaucracy and Representative Government from 1971 and I still think of this as his greatest contribution to economic theory. However, as Bill Woolsey reminds us William Niskanen was also a long time proponent of nominal income targeting.

Niskanen first advocated nominal income targeting or rather targeting of nominal spending in his 1992 paper “Political Guidance on Monetary Policy”. Niskanen later elaborated on the subject in his 2001 paper “A test of the Demand Rule” and further in his 2002 paper “On the Death of the Phillips Curve”.

Marcus Nunes has an insight comment on “A test of the Demand Rule” here.

1 Comment
by Lars Christensen on November 3, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in General economic theory, MM Research agenda, Monetary institutions, Monetary policy, Monetary policy rules, NGDP Targeting, Nominal Income Targeting, Public Choice Theory, Uncategorized
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Posted by Lars Christensen on November 3, 2011

https://marketmonetarist.com/2011/11/03/william-niskanen-1933-2011/

The Chuck Norris effect, Swiss lessons and a (not so) crazy idea

Here is from The Street Light:

“You may recall that in September the Swiss National Bank (SNB) announced that it was going to intervene as necessary in the currency markets to ensure that the Swiss Franc (CHF) stayed above a minimum exchange rate with the euro of 1.20 CHF/EUR. How has that been working out for them?

It turns out that it has been working extremely well. Today the SNB released data on its balance sheet for the end of September. During the month of August the SNB had to spend almost CHF 100 billion to buy foreign currency assets to keep the exchange rate at a reasonable level. But in September — most of which was after the announcement of the exchange rate minimum — the SNB’s foreign currency assets only grew by about CHF 25 billion. Furthermore, this increase in the CHF value of the SNB’s foreign currency assets likely includes substantial capital gains that the SNB reaped on its euro portfolio (which was valued at about €130 bn at the end of September), as the CHF was almost 10% weaker against the euro in September than in August. Given that, it seems likely that the SNB’s purchases of new euro assets in September after the announcement of the exchange rate floor almost completely stopped.”

This is a very strong demonstration of the power of monetary policy when the central bank is credible. This is the Chuck Norris effect of monetary policy: You don’t have to print more money to ease monetary policy if you are a credible central bank with a credible target. (Nick Rowe and I like this sort of thing…)

And now to the (not so) crazy idea – if the SNB can ease monetary policy by announcing a devaluation why can’t the Federal Reserve and the ECB do it? Obviously some would say that not all central banks in the world can devalue at the same time – but they can. They can easily do it against commodity prices. So lets say that the ECB, the Federal Reserve, the Bank of Japan, the Bank of England and the SNB tomorrow announced a 15% devaluation against commodity prices (for example the CRB index) and that they will defend that one sided “peg” until the nominal GDP level returns to their pre-Great Recession trend levels. Why 15%? Because that is more or less the NGDP “gap” in the euro zone and the US.

The clever reader will notice that this is the coordinated and slightly more sexy version of Lars E. O. Svensson’s fool-proof way to escape deflation and the liquidity trap.

Is a coordinated 15% devaluation of the major currencies of the world (with the exception of RMB) a crazy idea? Yes, it is quite crazy and it could trigger all kind of political discussions, but I am pretty sure it would work and would very fast bring US and European NGDP back towards the pre-crisis trend. And for those who now scream at the screen “How the hell will higher commodity prices help us?” I will just remind you of the crucial difference between demand and supply driven increases in commodity prices. But okay, lets say we don’t want to do that – so lets instead do the following. The same central banks will “devalue” 15% against a composite index for stock prices in the US, the UK, the euro zone and Japan. Ok, I know you are very upset now. How can he suggest that? I am not really suggesting it, but I am arguing that monetary policy can easily work and all this “crazy idea” would actually do the trick and bring back NGDP back on track in both the US and Europe.  But you might have a better idea.

18 Comments
by Lars Christensen on November 3, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Chuck Norris, Chuck Norris Effect, MM Research agenda, Monetary policy, Monetary policy rules, NGDP Targeting, Nick Rowe, Nominal Income Targeting, The Great Recession, Uncategorized
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Posted by Lars Christensen on November 3, 2011

https://marketmonetarist.com/2011/11/03/the-chuck-norris-effect-swiss-lessons-and-a-not-so-crazy-idea/

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
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Posted by Lars Christensen on November 3, 2011

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

M-pesa – Free Banking in Africa?

A number of my readers have an interest in monetary reform and especially in Free Banking. In that regard developments in Kenya are in fact very interesting, but I guess little known to Free Banking theorists.

Since 2007 a new “currency” has come to live in Kenya. It is the so-called m-pesa. M for mobile and pesa is money in Swahili.

Here is how M-pesa is described on Wikipedia:

“M-PESA is the product name of a mobile-phone based money transfer service for Safaricom, which is a Vodafone affiliate…The initial concept of M-PESA was to create a service which allowed microfinance borrowers to conveniently receive and repay loans using the network of Safaricom airtime resellers. This would enable microfinance institutions (MFIs) to offer more competitive loan rates to their users, as there is a reduced cost of dealing in cash. The users of the service would gain through being able to track their finances more easily. But when the service was trialled, customers adopted the service for a variety of alternative uses; complications arose with Faulu, the partnering microfinance institution (MFI). M-PESA was re-focused and launched with a different value proposition: sending remittances home across the country and making payments.”

Today, it is common to pay for services and goods around Kenya with M-pesa and as such the it has developed in to payment form, which is commonly accepted and trusted – some would say even more than the local currency – Kenyan shilling. In fact the Kenyan government will now even accept taxes paid with M-pesa.

I don’t know enough about M-pesa, but I don’t think it is a real currency at the moment and one cannot say that the M-pesa system is a Free Banking system. However, in my view would it could be developing in that direction.

I would be very interested in hearing what your views are on these developments and whether it can teach us anything in terms of monetary theory.

For more on M-pesa see this interesting NBER Working Paper.

PS for those interested in Kenyan monetary policy should note that the Kenyan central bank hiked its key policy rate by 550bp to 16.50% from 11.50%.

PPS when I started this blog I promised that it would not be US centric – I hope this post confirms this.

20 Comments
by Lars Christensen on November 2, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Free Banking, MM Research agenda, Monetary institutions, Monetary policy
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Posted by Lars Christensen on November 2, 2011

https://marketmonetarist.com/2011/11/02/m-pesa-free-banking-in-africa/

The inverse relationship between central banks’ credibility and the credibility of monetarism

A colleague of mine today said to me ”Lars, you must be happy that you can be a monetarist again”. (Yes, I am a Market Monetarists, but I consider that to be fully in line with fundamental monetarist thinking…)

So what did he mean? In the old days – prior to the Great Moderation monetarists would repeat Milton Friedman’s dictum that “inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon” and suddenly by the end of the 1970s and 1980s people that started to listen. All around the world central banks put in place policies to slow money supply growth and thereby bring down inflation. In the policy worked and inflation indeed started to come down around the world in the early 1980.

Central banks were gaining credibility as “inflation fighters” and Friedman was proven right – inflation is indeed always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon. However, then disaster stroke – not a disaster to the economy, but to the credibility of monetarism, which eventually led most central banks in the world to give up any focus on monetary aggregates. In fact it seemed like most central banks gave up any monetary analysis once inflation was brought under control. Even today most central banks seem oddly disinterested in monetary theory and monetary analysis.

The reason for the collapse of monetarist credibility was that the strong correlation, which was observed, between money supply growth and inflation (nominal GDP growth) in most of the post-World War II period broke down. Even when money supply growth accelerated inflation remained low. In time the relationship between money and inflation stopped being an issue and economic students around the world was told that yes, inflation is monetary phenomenon, but don’t think too much about it. Many young economists would learn think of the equation of exchange (MV=PY) some scepticism and as old superstition. In fact it is an identity in the same way as Y=C+I+G+X-M and there is no superstition or “old” theory in MV=PY.

Velocity became endogenous
To understand why the relationship between money supply growth and inflation (nominal GDP growth) broke down one has to take a look at the credibility of central banks.

But lets start out the equation of exchange (now in growth rates):

(1) m+v=p+y

Once central bankers had won credibility about ensure a certain low inflation rate (for example 2%) then the causality in (1) changed dramatically.

It used to be so that the m accelerated then it would fast be visible in higher p and y, while v was relatively constant. However, with central banks committed not to try to increase GDP growth (y) and ensuring low inflation – then it was given that central banks more or less started to target NGDP growth (p+y).

So with a credible central that always will deliver a fixed level of NGDP growth then the right hand side of (1) is fixed. Hence, any shock to m would be counteracted by a “shock” in the opposite direction to velocity (v). (This is by the way the same outcome that most theoretical models for a Free Banking system predict velocity would react in a world of a totally privatised money supply.) David Beckworth has some great graphs on the relationship between m and v in the US before and during the Great Moderation.

Assume that we have an implicit NGDP growth path target of 5%. Then with no growth in velocity then the money supply should also grow by 5% to ensure this. However, lets say that for some reason the money supply grow by 10%, but the “public” knows that the central bank will correct monetary policy in the following period to bring back down money to get NGDP back on the 5% growth path then money demand will adjust so that NGDP “automatically” is pushed back on trend.

So if the money supply growth “too fast” it will not impact the long-term expectation for NGDP as forward-looking economic agents know that the central bank will adjust monetary policy to bring if NGDP back on its 5% growth path.

So with a fixed NGDP growth path velocity becomes endogenous and any overshoot/undershoot in money supply growth is counteracted by a counter move in velocity, which ensures that NGDP is kept on the expected growth path. This in fact mean that the central banks really does not have to bother much about temporary “misses” on money supply growth as the market will ensure changes in velocity so that NGDP is brought back on trend. This, however, also means that the correlation between money and NGDP (and inflation) breaks down.

Hence, the collapse of the relation between money and NGDP (and inflation) is a direct consequence of the increased credibility of central banks around the world.

Hence, as central banks gained credibility monetarists lost it. However, since the outbreak of the Great Recession central banks have lost their credibility and there are indeed signs that the correlation between money supply growth and NGDP growth is re-emerging.

So yes, I am happy that people are again beginning to listen to monetarists (now in a improved version of Market Monetarism) – it is just sad that the reason once again like in the 1970s is the failure of central banks.

15 Comments
by Lars Christensen on October 31, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Milton Friedman, MM Research agenda, Monetary institutions, Monetary policy, Monetary policy rules, MV=PY, NGDP Targeting, Nominal Income Targeting, The Great Moderation, Velocity
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Posted by Lars Christensen on October 31, 2011

https://marketmonetarist.com/2011/10/31/the-inverse-relationship-between-central-banks-credibility-and-credibility-of-monetarism/

“Ben Volcker” and the monetary transmission mechanism

I am increasingly realising that a key problem in the Market Monetarist arguments for NGDP level targeting is that we have not been very clear in our arguments concerning how it would actually work.

We argue that we should target a certain level for NGDP and then it seems like we just expect it too happen more or less by itself. Yes, we argue that the central bank should control the money base to achieve this target and this could done with the use of NGDP futures. However, I still think that we need to be even clearer on this point.

Therefore, we really need a Market Monetarist theory of the monetary transmission mechanism. In this post I will try to sketch such a theory.

Combining “old monetarist” insights with rational expectations

The historical debate between “old” keynesians and “old” monetarists played out in the late 1960s and the 1970s basically was centre around the IS/LM model.

The debate about the IS/LM model was both empirical and theoretical. On the hand keynesians and monetarists where debating the how large the interest rate elasticity was of money and investments respectively. Hence, it was more or less a debate about the slope of the IS and LM curves. In much of especially Milton Friedman writings he seems to accept the overall IS/LM framework. This is something that really frustrates me with much of Friedman’s work on the transmission mechanism and other monetarists also criticized Friedman for this. Particularly Karl Brunner and Allan Meltzer were critical of “Friedman’s monetary framework” and for his “compromises” with the keynesians on the IS/LM model.

Brunner and Meltzer instead suggested an alternative to the IS/LM model. In my view Brunner and Meltzer provides numerous important insights to the monetary transmission mechanism, but it often becomes unduly complicated in my view as their points really are relatively simple and straight forward.

At the core of the Brunner-Meltzer critique of the IS/LM model is that there only are two assets in the IS/LM model – basically money and bonds and if more assets are included in the model such as equities and real estate then the conclusions drawn from the model will be drastically different from the standard IS/LM model. It is especially notable that the “liquidity trap” argument breaks down totally when more than two assets are included in the model. This obviously also is key to the Market Monetarist arguments against the existence of the liquidity trap.

This mean that monetary policy not only works via the bond market (in fact the money market). In fact we could easily imagine a theoretical world where interest rates did not exist and monetary policy would work perfectly well. Imagining a IS/LM model where we have two assets. Money and equities. In such a world an increase in the money supply would push up the prices of equities. This would reduce the funding costs of companies and hence increase investments. At the same time it would increase holdholds wealth (if they hold equities in their portfolio) and this would increase private consumption. In this world monetary policy works perfectly well and the there is no problem with a “zero lower bound” on interest rates. Throw in the real estate market and a foreign exchange markets and then you have two more “channels” by which monetary policy works.

Hence, the Market Monetarist perspective on monetary policy the following dictum holds:

“Monetary policy works through many channels”

Keynesians are still obsessed about interest rates

Fast forward to the debate today. New Keynesians have mostly accepted that there are ways out of the liquidity trap and the work of for example Lars E. O. Svensson is key. However, when one reads New Keynesian research today one will realise that New Keynesians are as obsessed with interest rates as the key channel for the transmission of monetary policy as the old keynesians were. What has changed is that New Keynesians believe that we can get around the liquidity trap by playing around with expectations. Old Keynesians assumed that economic agents had backward looking or static expectations while New Keynesians assume rational expectations – hence, forward-looking expectations.

Hence, New Keynesians still see interest rates at being at the core of monetary policy making. This is as problematic as it was 30 years ago. Yes, it is fine that New Keynesian acknowledges that agents are forward-looking but it is highly problematic that they maintain the narrow focus on interest rates.

In the New Keynesian model monetary policy works by increasing inflation expectation that pushes down real interest rates, which spurs private consumption and investments. Market Monetarists certainly do think this is one of many channels by which monetary policy work, but it is clearly not the most important channel.

Rules are at the centre of the transmission mechanism

Market Monetarist stresses the importance of monetary policy rules and how that impacts agents expectations and hence the monetary transmission mechanism. Hence, we are more focused on the forward-looking nature or monetary policy than the “old” monetarists were. In that regard we are similar to the New Keynesians.

It exactly because of our acceptance of rational expectations that we are so obsessed about NGDP level targeting. Therefore when we discuss the monetary policy transmission mechanism it is key whether we are in world with no credible rule in place or whether we are in a world of a credible monetary policy rule. Below I will discussion both.

From no credibility to a credible NGDP level target

Lets assume that the economy is in “bad equilibrium”. For some reason money velocity has collapsed, which continues to put downward pressures on inflation and growth and therefore on NGDP. Then enters a new credible central bank governor and he announces the following:

“I will ensure that a “good equilibrium” is re-established. That means that I will ‘print’ whatever amount of money is needed so to make up for the drop in velocity we have seen. I will not stop the expansion of the money base before market participants again forecasts nominal GDP to have returned to it’s old trend path. Thereafter I will conduct monetary policy in such a fashion so NGDP is maintained on a 5% growth path.”

Lets assume that this new central bank governor is credible and market participants believe him. Lets call him Ben Volcker.

By issuing this statement the credible Ben Volcker will likely set in motion the following process:

1) Consumers who have been hoarding cash because they where expecting no and very slow growth in the nominal income will immediately reduce there holding of cash and increase private consumption.
2) Companies that have been hoarding cash will start investing – there is no reason to hoard cash when the economy will be growing again.
3) Banks will realise that there is no reason to continue aggressive deleveraging and they will expect much better returns on lending out money to companies and households. It certainly no longer will be paying off to put money into reserves with the central bank. Lending growth will accelerate as the “money multiplier” increases sharply.
4) Investors in the stock market knows that in the long run stock prices track nominal GDP so a promise of a sharp increase in NGDP will make stocks much more attractive. Furthermore, with a 5% path growth rule for NGDP investors will expect a much less volatile earnings and dividend flow from companies. That will reduce the “risk premium” on equities, which further will push up stock prices. With higher stock prices companies will invest more and consumers will consume more.
5) The promise of loser monetary policy also means that the supply of money will increase relative to the demand for money. This effectively will lead to a sharp sell-off in the country’s currency. This obviously will improve the competitiveness of the country and spark export growth.

These are five channels and I did not mention interest rates yet…and there is a reason for that. Interest rates will INCREASE and so will bond yields as market participant start to price in higher inflation in the transition period in which we go from a “bad equilibrium” to a “good equilibrium”.

Hence, there is no reason for the New Keynesian interest rate “fetish” – we got at least five other more powerful channels by which monetary policy works.

Monetary transmission mechanism with a credible NGDP level target

Ben Volcker has now with his announcement brought back the economy to a “good equilibrium”. In the process he might have needed initially to increase the money base to convince economic agents that he meant business. However, once credibility is established concerning the new NGDP level target rule Ben Volcker just needs to look serious and credible and then expectations and the market will take care of the rest.

Imagine the following situation. A positive shock increase the velocity of money and with a fixed money supply this pushed NGDP above it target path. What happens?

1) Consumers realise that Ben Volcker will tighten monetary policy and slow NGDP growth. With the expectation of lower income growth consumers tighten their belts and private consumption growth slows.
2) Investors also see NGDP growth slowing so they scale back investments.
3) With the outlook for slower growth in NGDP banks scale back their lending and increase their reserves.
4) Stock prices start to drop as expectations for earnings growth is scaled back (remember NGDP growth and earnings growth is strongly correlated). This slows private consumption growth and investment growth.
5) With expectations of a tightening of monetary conditions players in the currency market send the currency strong. This led to a worsening of the country’s competitiveness and to weaker export growth.
6) Interest rates and bond yields DROP on the expectations of tighter monetary policy.

All this happens without Ben Volcker doing anything with the money base. He is just sitting around repeating his dogma: “The central bank will control the money base in such a fashion that economic agents away expect NGDP to grow along the 5% path we already have announced.” By now he might as well been replaced by a computer…

…..

Recommended reading on the “old” monetarist transmission mechanism

Milton Friedman: “Milton Friedman’s Monetary Framework: A Debate with His Critics”
Karl Brunner and Allan Meltzer: “Money and the Economy: Issues in Monetary Analysis”

For a similar discussion to mine with special focus on the Paradox of Thrieft see the following posts from some of our Market Monetarist friends:

Josh Hendrickson
David Beckworth
Bill Woolsey
Nick Rowe

And finally from Scott Sumner on the differences between New Keynesian and Market Monetarist thinking.

—-

Update: Scott Sumner has a interesting comment on central banking “language” and “interest rates”.

26 Comments
by Lars Christensen on October 30, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Milton Friedman, MM Research agenda, Monetary institutions, Monetary policy, Monetary policy rules, NGDP Targeting, Nominal Income Targeting, Transmission mechanism
Tagged , , , , , ,

Posted by Lars Christensen on October 30, 2011

https://marketmonetarist.com/2011/10/30/ben-volker-and-the-monetary-transmission-mechanism/

Bennett McCallum on EconPapers – start downloading NOW!

In a post today Scott Sumner pays tribute to Bennett McCallum. I am as Scott is a big fan of Dr. McCallum (and of Scott).

I have promised to do some posts on Dr. McCallum’s huge work on Nominal Income Targeting (NIT). I am particularly interested his work on NIT in small open economies, but it is all worth reading.

I suggest anybody interested in Dr. McCallum’s work starts at EconPapers. Take a look here and start downloading. I welcome anybody who would like to do guest blogs on their reading of Dr. McCallum’s work.

Leave a comment
by Lars Christensen on October 29, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in McCallum, McCallum-Christensen rule, MM Research agenda, Monetary policy, Monetary policy rules, NGDP Targeting, Nominal Income Targeting, Scott Sumner
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Posted by Lars Christensen on October 29, 2011

https://marketmonetarist.com/2011/10/29/bennett-mccallum-on-econpapers-start-downloading-now/

Christina Romer comes out in support of NGDP targeting

The momentum for NGDP targeting is clearly building. Anybody who is interested in monetary policy and in what will be driving the global market sentiment going forward should have a look this issue.

The latest convert is Christina Romer the former chair of Council of Economic Advisers.

Have a look at Dr. Romer’s open letter to Ben Bernanke.

——

Update: Scott Sumner has an excellent comment on Christina Romer, where he pays tribute to the great Bennett McCallum. Some thing I naturally appreciate very much given the attention that I have been giving to McCallum and the McCallum rule myself.

David Beckworth also has a comment on Romer (and some Baseball stuff an European like me can’t understand…)

See a few of my McCallum posts here:
Bennett McCallum – grandfather of Market Monetarism

More on the McCallum-Christensen rule (and something on Selgin and the IMF)

7 Comments
by Lars Christensen on October 29, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Monetary policy, Monetary policy rules, NGDP Targeting, Nominal Income Targeting, Reading recommendations, The Great Recession

Posted by Lars Christensen on October 29, 2011

https://marketmonetarist.com/2011/10/29/christina-romer-comes-out-in-support-of-ngdp-targeting/

Hawtrey, Cassel and Glasner

Recently I have been giving quite a bit attention to the writings Gustav Cassel (and I plan more…), but I have failed to give any attention to the great British monetary economist Raplh G. Hawtrey. That is not really fair – Hawtrey and Cassel lived more or less at the same time and both played important roles in the debate and formulation of monetary policy and monetary thinking around the world in 1920s and 1930s.

Long ago David Glasner – one of my big heros and the blogger on uneasymoney.com – and Ronald W. Batchelder long ago wrote a paper on the monetary economics of both Cassel and Hawtrey – “Pre-Keynesian monetary theories of the Great Depression”. You should all read it.

6 Comments
by Lars Christensen on October 26, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Economic and monetary history, Monetary policy, New Casselian economics, The Great Depression
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Posted by Lars Christensen on October 26, 2011

https://marketmonetarist.com/2011/10/26/hawtrey-cassel-and-glasner/

When central banking becomes central planning

The great thing about the blogosphere is that everything is happening in “real-time”. In economic journals the exchange of ideas and arguments can go on forever without getting to any real conclusion and some debates is never undertaken in the economic journals because of the format of journals.

Such a debate is the discussion about whether central banking is central planning, which has been going on between the one hand Kurt Schuler and on the other hand David Glasner and Bill Woolsey. Frankly speaking, I shouldn’t really get involved in this debate as the three gentlemen all are extreme knowledgeable about exactly this topic and they have all written extensively about Free Banking – something that I frankly has not written much about.

In my day-job central banks are just something we accept as a fact that is not up for debate. Anyway, I want to let me readers know about this interesting debate and maybe add a bit of my humble opinion as we go along. There is, however, no reason to “reprint” every single argument in the debate so here are the key links:

From Glasner:

“Gold and Ideology, continued”

“Central Banking is not Central Planning”

“Hayek on the meaning of planning”

“Central Banking and Central Planning, again”

From Schuler:

“Central Banking is a form of Central Planning”

“Once more: central banking is a form of central planning”

From Woolsey:

“Central Banking is Not Central Planning”

Initially my thinking was, yes, of course central banking is central planning, but Bill Woolsey arguments won the day (Sorry David, the Hayek quotes didn’t convince me…).

Here is Bill Woolsey:

“Comprehensive central planning of the economy is the central direction of the production and consumption of all goods services. How many cars do we want this year? How much steel is needed to produce those cars? How much iron ore is needed to produce the steel?…Trying to do this for every good and service all the time for millions of people producing and consuming is really, really hard. Perhaps impossible is not too strong of a word, though that really means impossible to do very well at all, much less do better than a competitive market system…Central banking is very different. It does involve having a monopoly over a very important good–base money. Early on, governments sold that monopoly to private firms, but later either explicitly nationalized the central banks, or regulated and “taxed” them to a point where any private elements are just window dressing…Schuler’s error is to identify this monopoly on the provision of an important good with comprehensive central planning. Yes, a monopolist must determine how much of its product to produce and what price to charge. The central bank must determine what quantity of base money to produce and what interest rate to pay (or charge) on reserve balances. But that is nothing like determining how much of each and every good is to be produced while making sure that the resources needed to produce them are properly delivered to the correct places at the correct times.”

Bill continues (here its gets really convincing…):

“Suppose electric power was produced as a government monopoly. That is certainly realistic. The inefficiency of multiple sets of transmission lines provides a plausible rationale. The government power monopoly would need to determine some pricing scheme and how much power to generate. And, of course, these decisions would have implications for the overall level of economic activity. Not enough capacity, and blackouts disrupt economic activity. Too much capacity, and the higher rates needed to pay for it deter economic activity…It is hard to conceive of an electric utility centrally directing the economy, but it isn’t impossible. Ration electricity to all firms based upon a comprehensive plan for what they should be doing. Any firm that produces the wrong amount and sends it to the wrong place is cut off.”

Central banking might not be central planning

Hence, there is a crucial difference between central planning and a government monopoly on the production of certain goods (as for example money). One can of course argue that if government produces anything it is socialism and therefore central planning. However, then central planning loses its meaning and will just become synonymous with socialism. Therefore, arguing that central banking is central planning as Schuler does is in my view wrong. It might be a integral part of an socialist economic system that money is monopolized, but that is still not the same thing as to say central banking is central planning.

But increasingly central banking is conducted as central planning

While central banking need not to be central banking it is also clear that during certain periods of history and in certain countries monetary policy has been conducted as if part (or actually being part of) a overall central planning scheme. In fact until the early 1980s most Western European economies and the US had massively regulated financial markets and credit and money were to a large extent allocated with central planning methods by the financial authorities and by the central banks. Furthermore, exchange controls meant that there was not a free flow of capital, which “necessitated” central planning of which companies and institutions should have access to foreign currency. Therefore, central banking during the 1970s for example clearly involved significant amounts of central planning.

However, the liberalization of the financial markets in most Western countries during the 1980s sharply reduced the elements of central planning in central banking around the world.

The Great Recession, however, has lead to a reversal of this trend away from “central bank planning” and central banks are increasingly involved in “micromanagement” and what clear feels and look like central planning.

In the US the Federal Reserve has been highly involved in buying “distressed assets” and hence strongly been influencing the relative prices in financial markets. In Europe the ECB has been actively interfering in the pricing of government bonds by actively buying for example Greek or Italian bonds to “support” the prices of these bonds. This obviously is not central banking, but central planning of financial markets. It is not and should not be the task of central banks to influence the allocation of credit and capital.

With central banks increasingly getting involved in micromanaging financial market prices and trying to decide what is the “right price” (contrary to the market price) the central banks obviously are facing the same challenges as any Soviet time central planning would face.

Mises and Hayek convincing won the Socialist calculation debate back in the 1920s and the collapse of communism once and for all proved the impossibility of a central planned economy. I am, however, afraid that central banks around the world have forgotten that lesson and increasing are acting as if it was not Mises and Hayek who prevailed in the Socialist-calculation debate but rather Lerner and Lange.

Furthermore, the central banks’ focus on micromanaging financial market prices is taking away attention from the actual conduct of monetary policy. This should also be a lesson for Market Monetarists who for example have supported quantitative easing in the US. The fact remains that what have been called QE in the US in fact does not have the purpose of increasing the money supply (to reduce monetary disequilibrium), but rather had the purpose of micromanaging financial market prices. Therefore, Market Monetarists should again and again stress that we support central bank actions to reduce monetary disequilibrium within a rule-based framework, but we object to any suggestion of the use  central planning “tools” in the conduct of monetary policy.

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by Lars Christensen on October 23, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Austrian economics, Economic and monetary history, Free Banking, General economic theory, MM Research agenda, Monetary institutions, Monetary policy
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Posted by Lars Christensen on October 23, 2011

https://marketmonetarist.com/2011/10/23/when-central-banking-becomes-central-planning/

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