All posts in category Nominal Income Targeting

Long and variable leads and lags

Scott Sumner yesterday posted a excellent overview of some key Market Monetarist positions. I initially thought I would also write a comment on what I think is the main positions of Market Monetarism but then realised that I already done that in my Working Paper on Market Monetarism from last year – “Market  Monetarism – The  Second  Monetarist  Counter-­revolution”. 

My fundamental view is that I personally do not mind being called an monetarist rather than a Market Monetarist even though I certainly think that Market Monetarism have some qualities that we do not find in traditional monetarism, but I fundamentally think Market Monetarism is a modern restatement of Monetarism rather than something fundamentally new.

I think the most important development in Market Monetarism is exactly that we as Market Monetarists stress the importance of expectations and how expectations of monetary policy can be read directly from market pricing. At the core of traditional monetarism is the assumption of adaptive expectations. However, today all economists acknowledge that economic agents (at least to some extent) are forward-looking and personally I have no problem in expressing that in the form of rational expectations – a view that Scott agrees with as do New Keynesians. However, unlike New Keynesian we stress that we can read these expectations directly from financial market pricing – stock prices, bond yields, commodity prices and exchange rates. Hence, by looking at changes in market pricing we can see whether monetary policy is becoming tighter or looser. This also has to do with our more nuanced view of the monetary transmission mechanism than is found among mainstream economists – including New Keynesians. As Scott express it:

Like monetarists, we assume many different transmission channels, not just interest rates.  Money affects all sorts of asset prices.  One slight difference from traditional monetarism is that we put more weight on the expected future level of NGDP, and hence the expected future hot potato effect.  Higher expected future NGDP tends to increase current AD, and current NGDP.

This is basically also the reason why Scott has stressed that monetary policy works with long and variable leads rather than with long and variable lags as traditionally expressed by Milton Friedman. In my view there is however really no conflict between the two positions and both are possible dependent on the institutional set-up in a given country at a given time.

Imagine the typical monetary policy set-up during the 1960s or 1970s when Friedman was doing research on monetary matters. During this period monetary policy clearly was missing a nominal anchor. Hence, there was no nominal target for monetary policy. Monetary policy was highly discretionary. In this environment it was very hard for market participants to forecast what policies to expect from for example the Federal Reserve. In fact in the 1960s and 1970s the Fed would not even bother to announce to market participant that it had changed monetary policy – it would simply just change the policy – for example interest rates. Furthermore, as the Fed was basically not communicating directly with the markets market participant would have to guess why a certain policy change had been implemented. As a result in such an institutional set-up market participants basically by default would have backward-looking expectations and would only gradually learn about what the Fed was trying to achieve. In such a set-up monetary policy nearly by definition would work with long and variable lags.

Contrary to this is the kind of set-up we had during the Great Moderation. Even though the Federal Reserve had not clearly formulated its policy target (it still hasn’t) market participants had a pretty good idea that the Fed probably was targeting the nominal GDP level or followed a kind of Taylor rule and market participants rarely got surprised by policy changes. Hence, market participants could reasonably deduct from economic and financial developments how policy would be change in the future. During this period monetary policy basically became endogenous. If NGDP was above trend then market participant would expect that monetary policy would be tightened. That would increase money demand and push down money-velocity and push up short-term interest rates. Often the Fed would even hint in what direction monetary policy was headed which would move stock prices, commodity prices, the exchange rates and bond yields in advance for any actual policy change. A good example of this dynamics is what we saw during early 2001. As a market participant I remember that the US stock market would rally on days when weak US macroeconomic data were released as market participants priced in future monetary easing. Hence, during this period monetary policy clear worked with long and variable leads.

In fact if we lived in a world of perfectly credible NGDP level targeting monetary policy would be fully automatic and probably monetary easing and tightening would happen through changes in money demand rather than through changes in the money base. In such a world the lead in monetary policy would be extremely short. This is the Market Monetarist dream world. In fact we could say that not only is “long and variable leads” a description of how the world is, but a normative position of how it should be.

Concluding there is no conflict between whether monetary policy works with long and variable leads or lags, but rather this is strictly dependent on the monetary policy regime and how monetary policy is implemented. A key problem in both the ECB’s and the Fed’s present policies today is that both central banks are far from clear about what nominal targets they have and how to achieve it – in some ways we are back to the pre-Great Moderation days of policy uncertainty. As a consequence market participants will only gradually learn about what the central bank’s real policy objectives are and therefore there is clearly an element of long and variable lags in monetary policy. However, if the Fed tomorrow announced that it would aim to increase NGDP by 15% by the end of 2013 and it would try to achieve that by buying unlimited amounts of foreign currency I am pretty sure we would swiftly move to a world of instantaneously working monetary policy – hence we would move from a quasi-Friedmanian world to a Sumnerian world.

Without rules we live in Friedmanian world – with clear nominal targets we live live in Sumnerian world.

PS Today is a Sumnerian day – hints from both the Fed and the ECB about possible monetary tightening is leading to monetary policy tightening today. Just take a look at US stock markets…(Ok, Greek worries is also playing apart, but that is passive monetary tightening as dollar demand increases)

15 Comments
by Lars Christensen on March 6, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in ECB, Economic and monetary history, Efficient-Market Hypothesis, Federal Reserve, Financial markets, Milton Friedman, MM Research agenda, Monetary institutions, Monetary policy, Monetary policy rules, NGDP Targeting, Nominal Income Targeting, Reading recommendations, Scott Sumner, The Great Moderation, The Great Recession, Transmission mechanism
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Posted by Lars Christensen on March 6, 2012

https://marketmonetarist.com/2012/03/06/long-and-variable-leads-and-lags/

NGDP level targeting and the Fed’s mandate

Renee Haltom has an interesting article in the recent edition of Richmond’s Fed’s magazine Region Focus on “Would a LITTLE inflation produce a BIGGER recover?”.

Renee among other things discusses NGDP targeting – it is unclear from the article whether it is a reference to growth or level targeting and somewhat surprisingly Market Monetarists such as Scott Sumner is not mentioned in the discussion. Rather Renee Haltom has interviewed Bennett McCallum. Professor McCallum is of course the grandfather of Market Monetarism so Renee is forgiven for not mentioning Scott.

What I found most interesting in Renee’s discussion was actually the relationship between NGDP targeting and the Fed’s legal mandate:

“NGDP is everything that is produced times the current prices people pay for it. It is similar to “real” GDP, the measure of economic growth reported in the news, except NGDP isn’t adjusted for inflation. One appeal is that growth in NGDP is the sum of exactly two things: inflation and the growth rate of real GDP (the amount of actual goods and services produced). Thus, it captures both sides of the Fed’s mandate in a single variable.”

So what Renee is basically suggesting is a that NGDP targeting would be fully comparable with the Federal Reserve’s mandate – to ensure price stability as well as to maximize employment. Unlike Scott Sumner I don’t think the Fed’s mandate is meaningful. The Fed should not try to maximize employment. In the long run employment is determined by factors completely outside of the Fed’s control. In the long run unemployment is determined by supply factors. In my view the only task of the Fed should be to ensure nominal stability and monetary neutrality (not distort relative prices) and the best way to do that is through a NGDP level target. However, lets play along and say that the Fed’s mandate is meaningful.

In his 2001 paper “U.S. Monetary Policy During the 1990s” Greg Mankiw suggested that Fed’s policy reaction function (for interest rates) could be seen as a function of the rate of unemployment minus core inflation. Lets call this measure Mankiw’s constant. The clever reader will of course notice that we now capture Fed’s mandate in one variable.

The graph below shows Mankiw’s constant and the ‘NGDP gap’ defined as percentage deviation from the trend in nominal GDP from 1990 to 2007 (the Great Moderation period).

The graph is pretty clear – there is a very strong correlation between the Fed’s mandate and NGDP level targeting. If the Fed keeps NGDP on trend then it will also ensure that Mankiw constant in fact would be a constant and fulfill it’s mandate. The graph of course also shows very clearly that the Federal Reserve at the moment is very far from fulfilling its mandate.

Given the very strong correlation between Mankiw’s constant and the NGDP gap it should be pretty easy for the Fed to argue that NGDP level (!) targeting is fully comparable with the Fed’s target. So Ben why are you still waiting?

14 Comments
by Lars Christensen on February 26, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve, McCallum, MM Research agenda, Monetary institutions, Monetary policy, Monetary policy rules, NGDP Targeting, Nominal Income Targeting, Scott Sumner
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Posted by Lars Christensen on February 26, 2012

https://marketmonetarist.com/2012/02/26/ngdp-level-targeting-and-the-feds-mandate/

”Regime Uncertainty” – a Market Monetarist perspective

My outburst over the weekend against the Rothbardian version of Austrian business cycle theory was not my normal style of blogging. I normally try to be non-confrontational in my blogging style. Krugman-style blogging is not really for me, but I must admit my outburst had some positive consequences. Most important it generated some good – friendly – exchanges with Steve Horwitz and other Austrians.

Steve’s blog post in response to my post gave some interesting insight. Most interesting for me was that Steve highlighted Robert Higgs’ “Regime Uncertainty” theory of the Great Depression.

Higg’s thesis is that the recovery from the Great Depression was prolonged due to “Regime Uncertainty”, which hampered especially growth in investment. Here is Higgs:

“The hypothesis is a variant of an old idea: the willingness of businesspeople to invest requires a sufficiently healthy state of “business confidence,” and the Second New Deal ravaged the requisite confidence …. To narrow the concept of business confidence, I adopt the interpretation that businesspeople may be more or less “uncertain about the regime,” by which I mean, distressed that investors’ private property rights in their capital and the income it yields will be attenuated further by government action. Such attenuations can arise from many sources, ranging from simple tax-rate increases to the imposition of new kinds of taxes to outright confiscation of private property. Many intermediate threats can arise from various sorts of regulation, for instance, of securities markets, labor markets, and product markets. In any event, the security of private property rights rests not so much on the letter of the law as on the character of the government that enforces, or threatens, presumptive rights.”

Overall I think Higgs’ concept makes a lot of sense and there is no doubt that uncertainty about economic policy had negative impact on the performance of the US economy during the Great Depression. I would especially highlight that the so-called National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) and the Smoot-Hawley tariff act not only had directly negative impact on the US economy, but mostly likely also created uncertainty about core capitalist institutions such as property rights and the freedom of contract. This likely hampered investment growth in the way described by Higgs.

However, I am somewhat critical about the “transmission mechanism” of this regime uncertainty. From the Market Monetarist perspective recessions are always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon. Hence, in my view regime uncertainty can only impact nominal GDP if it in someway impact monetary policy – either through money demand or the money supply.

This is contrary to Higgs’ description of the “transmission mechanism”. Higgs’ description is – believe it or not – fundamentally Keynesian in its character (no offence meant Bob): An increase in regime uncertainty reduces investments and that directly reduces real GDP. This is exactly similar to how the fiscal multiplier works in a traditional Keynesian model.

In a Market Monetarist set-up this will only have impact if the monetary authorities allowed it – in the same way as the fiscal multiplier will only be higher than zero if monetary policy allow it. See my discussion of fiscal policy here.

Hence, from a Market Monetarist perspective the impact on investment will be only important from a supply side perspective rather than from a demand side perspective. That, however, does not mean that it is not important – rather the opposite. What makes us rich or poor in the long run is supply side factor and not demand side factors.

The real uncertainty is nominal

While a drop in investment surely has a negative impact on the long run on real GDP growth I would suggest that we should focus on a slightly different kind of regime uncertain than the uncertainty discussed by Higgs. Or rather we should also focus on the uncertainty about the monetary regime.

Let me illustrate this by looking at the present crisis. The Great Moderation lasted from around 1985 and until 2008. This period was characterised by a tremendously high degree of nominal stability. Said in another way there was little or no uncertainty about the monetary regime. Market participants could rightly expect the Federal Reserve to conduct monetary policy in such a way to ensure that nominal GDP grew around 5% year in and year out and if NGDP overshot or undershot the target level one year then the Fed would makes to bring back NGDP on the “agreed” path. This environment basically meant that monetary policy became endogenous and the markets were doing most of the lifting to keep NGDP on its “announced” path.

However, the well-known – even though not the official – monetary regime broke down in 2008. As a consequence uncertainty about the monetary regime increased dramatically – especially as a result of the Federal Reserve’s very odd unwillingness to state a clearly nominal target.

This increase in monetary regime uncertainty mean that market participants now have a much harder time forecasting nominal income flows (NGDP growth). As a result market participants will try to ensure themselves negative surprises in the development in nominal variables by keeping a large “cash buffer”. Remember in uncertain times cash is king! Hence, as a result money demand will remain elevated as long as there is a high degree of regime uncertainty.

As a consequence the Federal Reserve could very easily ease monetary conditions without printing a cent more by clearly announcing a nominal target (preferably a NGDP level target). Hence, if the Fed announced a clear nominal target the demand for cash would like drop significantly and for a given money supply a decrease in money demand is as we know monetary easing.

This is the direct impact of monetary regime uncertainty and in my view this is significantly more important for economic activity in the short to medium run than the supply effects described above. However, it should also be noted that in the present situation with extremely subdued economic activity in the US the calls for all kind of interventionist policies are on the rise. Calls for fiscal easing, call for an increase in minimum wages and worst of all calls for all kind of protectionist initiatives (the China bashing surely has gotten worse and worse since 2008). This is also regime uncertainty, which is likely to have an negative impact on US investment activity, but equally important if you are afraid about for example what kind of tax regime you will be facing in one or two years time it is also likely to increase the demand for money. I by the way regard uncertainty about banking regulation and taxation to a be part of the uncertainty regarding the monetary regime. Hence, uncertainty about non-monetary issues such as taxation can under certain circumstances have monetary effects.

Concluding at the moment – as was the case during the Great Depression – uncertainty about the monetary regime is the biggest single regime uncertain both in the US and Europe. This monetary regime uncertainty in my view has tremendously negative impact on the economic perform in both the US and Europe.

So while I am sceptical about the transmission mechanism of regime uncertainty in the Higgs model I do certainly agree that we need regime certain. We can only get that with sound monetary institutions that secure nominal stability. I am sure that Steve Horwitz and Peter Boettke would agree on that.

11 Comments
by Lars Christensen on February 14, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Monetary institutions, NGDP Targeting, Nominal Income Targeting, Peter Boettke, Reading recommendations, Steven Horwitz, The Great Depression, The Great Moderation, Transmission mechanism
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Posted by Lars Christensen on February 14, 2012

https://marketmonetarist.com/2012/02/14/regime-uncertainty-a-market-monetarist-perspective/

Josh Hendrickson shows that the Fed targeted NGDP growth

I have previously quoted Alan Greenspan for saying the following at a FOMC meeting in 1992:

“Let me put it to you this way. If you ask whether we are confirming our view to contain the success that we’ve had to date on inflation, the answer is “yes.” I think that policy is implicit among the members of this Committee, and the specific instruments that we may be using or not using are really a quite secondary question. As I read it, there is no debate within this Committee to abandon our view that a non-inflationary environment is best for this country over the longer term. Everything else, once we’ve said that, becomes technical questions. I would say in that context that on the basis of the studies, we have seen that to drive nominal GDP, let’s assume at 4-1/2 percent, in our old philosophy we would have said that [requires] a 4-1/2 percent growth in M2. In today’s analysis, we would say it’s significantly less than that. I’m basically arguing that we are really in a sense using [unintelligible] a nominal GDP goal of which the money supply relationships are technical mechanisms to achieve that. And I don’t see any change in our view…and we will know they are convinced (about “price stability”) when we see the 30-year Treasury at 5-1/2 percent.“

Now Josh Hendrickson has a new paper out – “An Overhaul of Federal Reserve Doctrine: Nominal Income and the Great Moderation” – that basically confirms that the Fed actually did what Greenspan said it would do – at least during the Great Moderation. Here is the abstract:

“The Great Moderation is often characterized by the decline in the variability of output and inflation from earlier periods. While a multitude of explanations for the Great Moderation exist, notable research has focused on the role of monetary policy. Specifically, early evidence suggested that this increased stability is the result of monetary policy that responded much more strongly to realized inflation. Recent evidence casts doubt on this change in monetary policy. An alternative hypothesis is that the change in monetary policy was the result of a change in doctrine; specifically the rejection of the view that inflation was largely a cost-push phenomenon. As a result, this alternative hypothesis suggests that the change in monetary policy beginning in 1979 is reflected in the Federal Reserve’s response to expectations of nominal income growth rather than realized inflation as previously argued. I provide evidence for this hypothesis by estimating the parameters of a monetary policy rule in which policy adjusts to forecasts of nominal GDP for the pre- and post-Volcker eras. Finally, I embed the rule in two dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models with gradual price adjustment to determine whether the overhaul of doctrine can explain the reduction in the volatility of inflation and the output gap.”

Josh has written and excellent paper and I recommend everybody to have a look at Josh’s paper – maybe if we are lucky Ben Bernanke might also read the paper. After all the paper will be published in Journal of Macroeconomics. Bernanke is on the editorial board of JoM.

PS Josh also has a comment on this on his blog.

Update: Scott Sumner also has a comment on Josh’s paper.

6 Comments
by Lars Christensen on February 11, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve, Josh Hendrickson, NGDP Targeting, Nominal Income Targeting
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Posted by Lars Christensen on February 11, 2012

https://marketmonetarist.com/2012/02/11/josh-hendrickson-shows-that-the-fed-targeted-ngdp-growth/

Do we have a problem if it works?

Recently I have become more positive on the outlook for the European and US economies. It seems like the ECB has finally recognised that it need to ease monetary policy to avoid a deflationary disaster and judging from the development in broad monetary aggregates in the US there are signs that things are also moving in the right direction in the US economy.

If investors and consumers are jumping on the happy-go-lucky bandwagon then we might even see the money velocity in the US and the euro zone  begin to inch up. If both broad money supply growth is picking up and velocity would be inching upward then nominal GDP and inflation would also be accelerating and as any Market Monetarist will tell you expectations are key so the recovery could be very swift if market participants start to think that central banks are willing to accept as short-term pick up inflation to achieve a higher level of NGDP.

Lets be really optimistic and say that US inflation jumps to 5% in the coming half year and real GDP also increases to 5% (there are no signs that that is happening). That would give us 10% NGDP growth and we would finally be closing the “NGDP gap” and start to return to the pre-crisis trend. What would happen in that situation? Well, some of us would happy, but there is no doubt that the fears of “runaway inflation” would increase. As somebody asked me the other day “will you be able to stop inflation getting out of control if you have 2 years in a row with 5 or 7% inflation?” My answer was “Clearly!”, but I must also admit that I am more worried than that answer reflected.

Hence, in my view there is a real risk that if monetary policy is eased in the present “stealth” fashion then it will be much harder to anchor expectations – and more importantly it might be harder to get policy makers back to the idea that high inflation is bad. No, please do remember that we are not inflationists. Inflation is bad – at least demand inflation is bad.

Therefore, I think that even if nominal GDP growth starts to pick up I think is extremely important that we keep arguing in favour of NGDP level targeting. We don’t want “stimulus” to bring us out of the present mess. No, we want a monetary regime that ensures us against ever to get into this situation again. So yes, we should clearly argue for monetary easing now, but it is much more important that sound monetary regimes are implemented.

Lets say I had the choice between increasing euro NGDP with 15% right now but also maintain the overall present monetary regime in Europe (with all its faults) or have a monetary regime based NGDP level targeting (but from present levels) then I surely would prefer the later.

9 Comments
by Lars Christensen on February 9, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Monetary institutions, Monetary policy, Monetary policy rules, NGDP Targeting, Nominal Income Targeting
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Posted by Lars Christensen on February 9, 2012

https://marketmonetarist.com/2012/02/09/do-we-have-a-problem-if-it-works/

Guest blog: NGDP Targeting is NOT just for Central Banks! (David Eagle)

Guest blog: NGDP Targeting is NOT just for Central Banks!

By David Eagle

Because of Lars Christensen’s blog on “Market Monetarism vs Krugmanism,” I am interjecting a new topic into my guest blog series.  I agree with the comments from JJA and Scott B. on Scott Sumner’s blog.  While some of the market monetarists do not believe in the effectiveness of fiscal policy, I think there is a great opportunity for those fiscal conservatives among us to openly welcome Keynesians to bring fiscal policy into the realm of NGDP targeting.  I agree with JJA that NGDP targeting should be the aim for BOTH monetary and fiscal policy.  In other words, both monetary and fiscal policy should target NGDP, although under normal times that responsibility should fall on the central bank.  Let me restate this very important statement: The role of fiscal policy in stimulating aggregate demand should also be governed by the NGDP target.  In other words, if NGDP is below target and the central bank says it needs help from fiscal policy to boost NGDP, then those in favor of using fiscal policy should advocate for fiscal stimuli.  However, when NGDP is at or above target, then the fiscal policy should be directed towards fiscal surpluses to make up for the previous deficit spending.  If the central bank and fiscal authorities were to agree on a NGDP target, then we would not have had the huge fiscal deficits that we did have preceding 2008.

However, unfortunately the central bank and fiscal authorities have not been following a mutually agreed upon and transparent NGDP target.  Because of the murky waters concerning what the central bank is doing, fiscal and monetary policy often work in different directions.  In particular, when the central bank targets inflation, it often is not clear what the central bank’s intentions are with regard to NGDP.  (Because I agree with Scott Sumner that we should treat NGDP and aggregate demand as the same concept, even a central bank targeting inflation should be transparent about what its intentions are concerning aggregate demand, i.e., NGDP; but alas central banks today are not that transparent.)  Because of these murky waters, politicians have often been able to pass politically desirable tax cuts and increased government spending under the guise of stimulating the economy (i.e., stimulating aggregate demand, i.e., stimulating NGDP), even though the central bank is content to let bygones be bygones and keep NGDP on its current track, but consistent with its future inflation target.

The Japanese Experience:

Take Japan, for example, where the Bank of Japan was under pressure to be more independent of the Japanese Government and be more like “western central banks” at maintaining price stability.[1]  Then came the 1990s and the Japanese Government followed Keynesian fiscal policy to stimulate the economy.  Meanwhile the Central Bank of Japan was determined to follow in Paul Volker’s footsteps of regaining credibility for maintaining price stability.  As Scott Sumner (2011) reported, the Bank of Japan actually pursued restrictive monetary policy at times when the Japanese government was trying to be expansionary with its fiscal policy.[2]  Because they were pulling the economy in two different directions, the result was (i) the Bank of Japan offsetting much of what the aggregate-demand effects of the fiscal stimuli, and (ii) the national debt in Japan skyrocketed from 51% of GDP at the beginning of the 1980s to over 220% now.  Then came 3/11/11, the day of the triple supply shock in Japan – earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear crisis.  In addition to their enormous national debt, now Japan faces the high costs of rebuilding.

Lack of Coordination between US Fiscal Policy and the Federal Reserve:

The United States I think is another example.  In 2003, the Bush administration passed tax cuts and kept them in place for a long time (they are still in place today).  These tax cuts were to stimulate the economy.  However, at the same time, the Federal Reserve was content to “let bygones be bygones” and let the NGDP base drift caused by the 2001 recession continue (see my guest blog that explains NGDP base drift).  As a result, if the tax cuts did have any stimulative effect, the Federal Reserve would have countered them with monetary policy.  On the other hand, if both the Federal Reserve and the Bush administration had agreed upon a NGDP target, and if that NGDP target was above where NGDP was at the moment, then the Federal Reserve could have tried to boost NGDP by using tools that Ben Bernanke said he had and that Scott Sumner believes he had.[3]  Also, as I will explain in a later guest blog, expectations has an important role to play.  If the public expects the central bank and fiscal policy to succeed in boosting NGDP up to its target, then they will be more inclined to spend more because of higher expected short-term inflation, helping the monetary and fiscal policy reach this goal.  Unfortunately, despite all the rhetoric about the transparency of inflation targeting (IT), IT is not as transparent as NGDP targeting.  I believe the ultimate in transparency for both monetary and fiscal policy is NGDP targeting.

The Two-Headed British Media:

Sumner (2011) reports an example in Britain of how the lack of transparency with regard to aggregate demand, i.e. NGDP, led to the British media simultaneously condemning both fiscal and monetary policy simultaneously:

“Recent events in Britain provide a perfect example of the confusion generated by drawing this sort of false dichotomy between monetary and fiscal policy. The government of Prime Minister David Cameron has been sharply criticized for its policy of fiscal austerity. The recovery from the recent recession has been even weaker in Britain than in the United States, and there are fears that budget cuts will lead to a double-dip recession. At the same time, the press has been highly critical of the Bank of England for allowing inflation to rise far above the 2% target. But these criticisms cannot both be correct: Either Britain needs more aggregate demand or it does not. If it needs more, then the inflation rate in Britain needs to rise even higher, because the Bank of England needs to provide even more monetary stimulus. If inflation is too high and Britain needs less aggregate demand, then [the British] should desire fiscal austerity that would slow the economy. The press seems to believe in some sort of policy magic whereby fiscal stimulus can create growth without inflation and monetary tightening can reduce inflation without affecting growth.” (brackets added after consultation with Scott Sumner)

If the British media is confused, then obviously the British public is confused.  If British fiscal and monetary policy both pursued a NGDP target, I believe the British media and British public would finally understand that it cannot criticize both fiscal and monetary policy under these circumstances.  As I said before, expectations plays an important part to boosting aggregate demand (NGDP), and I know no better way to guide the public expectations concerning aggregate demand than a credible and transparent NGDP target for both monetary and fiscal policy.

Summary: NGDP targeting for both fiscal and monetary policy:

In summary, if the central bank and those in favor of fiscal policy could agree on a NGDP target and then jointly pursue that target, our economies would be so much better today.  In particular, on the fiscal side, we would have no justification for the high federal government debt we have accumulated.  If fiscal policy followed a NGDP target, then over half the time we should have fiscal surpluses rather than fiscal deficits.  Also, a NGDP target is so much more transparent for both fiscal policy and monetary policy than the murky waters of inflation targeting that we face today.  With fiscal policy and monetary policy following a NGDP target, expensive fiscal stimuli could not be justified to stimulate the economy when NGDP is at or above target.

Reference:

Sumner, Scott (2011). “Re-Targeting the Fed,” National Affairs Issue #9.

[1] Ben Bernanke (http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/bernanke20100525a.htm) reported in 2010, “The importance of central bank independence also motivated a 1997 revision to Japanese law that gave the Bank of Japan operational independence.9 This revision significantly diminished the scope for the Ministry of Finance to influence central bank decisions, thus strengthening the Bank of Japan’s autonomy in setting monetary policy.”

[2] Scott Sumner states, “But the Japanese twice tightened monetary policy in an environment of zero inflation (in 2000 and 2006), so it would be hard to claim that they were trying to create inflation.”

[3] Sumner (2011, p. 4) states, ““But the Fed itself never claimed to be ‘out of ammunition,’ even after rates hit zero.  Indeed, Chairman Ben Bernanke has repeatedly stressed that the Fed still has many options for boosting demand, and he has proved the point with two rounds of ‘quantitative easing.’  Indeed, it is hard to see how a fiat-money central bank would ever be left unable to boost nominal spending.  That would logically imply it was unable to raise the rate of inflation – that is, to ‘debase the currency,’ which it can always do.  There is no example in history of any fiat-money central bank that tried to create inflation and failed.”

© Copyright (2012) by David Eagle

3 Comments
by Lars Christensen on February 6, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in David Eagle, Fiscal policy, NGDP Targeting, Nominal Income Targeting, Scott Sumner
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Posted by Lars Christensen on February 6, 2012

https://marketmonetarist.com/2012/02/06/guest-blog-ngdp-targeting-is-not-just-for-central-banks-david-eagle/

George Selgin outlines strategy for the privatisation of the money supply

I have earlier argued that NGDP targeting is a effectively emulating the outcome under a perfect Free Banking system and as such NGDP level targeting can be seen as a privatisation strategy. George Selgin has just endorsed this kind of idea in a presentation at the Italian Free Market think tank the Bruno Leoni Institute. The presentation is available on twitcam.

You can see the presentation here. You need a bit of patience if you are not Italian speaking, but George eventually switch to English. The presentation lasts around 45 minutes.

I will not go through all of George’s arguments – instead I recommend everybody to take a look at George’s presentation on your own. However, let me give a brief overview.

Basically George see a three step procedure for the privatisation of the money supply and how to go from the present fiat based monetary monopoly to what he calls a Free Banking system based on a Quasi Commodity Standard. Often Free Banking proponents tend to start out with some kind of gold standard – or at least assume that some sort of commodity standard is necessary for a Free Banking system to work. George does not endorse a gold standard. Rather he favours a privatisation strategy based on a NGDP targeting rule.

Essentially George spells out a three step procedure toward the privatisation of the money supply.

The first step (and this is especially directed towards the US Federal Reserve) is to move towards a much more flexible system provision of liquidity to the market than under the present US system where the Federal Reserve historically has relied on so-called primary dealers in the money market. George wants to abolish this system and instead wants the Fed to control the money base directly through open market operations. I fully endorse such a system. There is no reason why the monetary system and the banking system will have to be so closely intertwined as is the case in many countries. A system based on open market operations would also do away with the ad hoc nature of the many lending facilities that have been implemented in both the euro zone and the US since 2008.  George is essentially is saying what Market Monetarists have argued as well and that is that central banks should be less focused on “saving” the financial sector and more focused on ensuring the flow of liquidity (and yes, that is two very different things). George discusses these ideas in depth in his recent paper “L STREET:Bagehotian Prescriptions for a 21st-century Money Market”. I hope to return to a discussion of this paper at a later point.

The second step – and that should interest Market Monetarists – is that George comes out and strongly endorses NGDP targeting – or as George puts it a “stable rule for growth of aggregate (nominal) spending” and argues that central banks should do away with discretion in the conduct of monetary policy. George directly refers to Scott Sumner as he is making this argument. George’s preferred rate of growth of nominal spending is 2.5-3% – contrary to Scott’s suggestion of a 5% growth. That said, I am pretty sure that George would be happy if the Federal Reserve implemented Scott’s suggested rule. George is not religious about this. I on my part I am probably closer to George’s view than to Scott’s view, but again this is not overly important and practically a 5% growth rate would more or less be a return to the Great Moderation standard at least for the US. It should of course be noted that there is nothing new in the fact that George supports NGDP targeting – just read “Less than zero” folks! However, George in his presentation puts this nicely into the perspective of strategy to privatise the supply of money.

In arguing in favour of nominal spending targeting George makes it clear that it is not about indirectly ensuring some stable inflation rate in the long run, but rather “stability of (nominal) spending is the ultimate goal”. I am sure Scott will be applauding loudly. Furthermore – and this is in my view extremely important – a rule to ensure stability of nominal spending will ensure that there is no excuse for ad hoc and discretionary policy. With liquidity provision based on a flexible framework of open market operations and NGDP targeting the money supply will effectively be endogenous and any increase in money demand will always be met by an increase in the the money supply. So even if a financial crisis leads to a sharp increase in money demand there will be no argument at all for discretionary changes in the monetary policy framework. (Recently I have been talking about whether pro-NGDP targeting keynesians like Paul Krugman are saying the same as Market Monetarists. My argument is that they are not – Paul Krugman probably would hate the suggestion that monetary discretion should be given up).

Market Monetarists should have no problem endorsing these two first steps. However, the third step and that is the total privation of the supply on money will be more hard to endorse for some Market Monetarists. Hence, Scott Sumner has not endorsed Free Banking – neither has Nick Rowe nor has Marcus Nunes. However, I guess Bill Woolsey, David Beckworth and myself probably have some (a lot?) sympathy for the idea of eventually getting rid of central banks altogether.

This, however, is a rather academic discussion and at least to me the discussion of NGDP targeting and changing of central bank operating procedures for now is much more important. That said, George discusses a privatisation of the money supply based on what he calls a Quasi Commodity Standard (QCS). QCS is inspired by the technological development of the so-called Bitcoins. I will not discuss this issue in depth here, but I hope to return to the discussion once George has spelled out the idea in a paper.

Once again – have a look at George’s presentation.

HT Blake Johnson

8 Comments
by Lars Christensen on February 4, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Bill Woolsey, Blake Johnson, David Beckworth, Federal Reserve, Free Banking, George Selgin, Gold Standard, Marcus Nunes, MM Research agenda, Monetary institutions, NGDP Targeting, Nominal Income Targeting, Reading recommendations, Scott Sumner
Tagged , , ,

Posted by Lars Christensen on February 4, 2012

https://marketmonetarist.com/2012/02/04/george-selgin-outlines-strategy-for-the-privatisation-of-the-money-supply/

Market Monetarism vs Krugmanism

Here is an interesting comment from ‘JJA’ over at Scott Sumner’s blog:

“Scott, I have enjoyed reading your blog. As a practitioner (firm level decisions regarding export related efforts) I find you (and other market monetarists, especially Christensen and Nunes) very understandable and convincing. But… But I find Krugman and DeLong very understandable and convincing also… From my micro-level point of view it seems to be the case that both sides are right, but something is missing in-between.

Well, I am not an economist, but I think that I see NGDP as the ultimate aim in order to manage stable and prosperous economy. At the same time I see the importance of fiscal activity (from the state or whatever public body), and that is at the same time when I think that the monetary policy is the most important part of the situation. But I feel that monetary policy alone is not enough in order to achieve good results in a reasonable time. Therefore fiscal.

From my practical point of view, both market monetarists and old-style keynesians seem to be right at the same time. It may be that I am mad or something vital is missing from our understanding of economics.

But in any case, I just make decisions in practice. By the way, I am from the Eurozone (unfortunately).”

I think JJA raises a number of interesting questions about the similarities between Market Monetarism and “Krugmanism”. Yes, Krugman has endorsed NGDP level targeting as do Market Monetarists. However, just because we share the policy recommendation (and I am not sure we really do…) that does not mean that our theoretical thinking is close.

I do fundamentally think that Keynesians (including Krugman) and Market Monetarists (and old style Monetarists) are quite far away from each other theoretically.

I have three earlier posts that might clarify this:

On our macro/micro foundation: How I would like to teach Econ 101

On why we don’t think fiscal policy is effective. There is no such thing as fiscal policy

On why we favour a RULES based monetary policy: NGDP targeting is not a Keynesian business cycle policy

These three posts should make it clear what the key theoretical differences between Market Monetarists and Keynesians are.

That said, for the US and the euro zone Market Monetarists and New Keynesians (at least Krugman, DeLong and Romer) agree that monetary easing is warranted and that this could be done within the framework of NGDP level targeting. That said, Market Monetarists do not want to “fix” the economy and unlike keynesians we do not think that the problems are real, but rather nominal. The crisis is a result of a monetary policy mistakes rather than a “market failure”.

In regard to fiscal policy I might add that Market Monetarists probably are less concerned about the general fiscal troubles in the US and the euro zone than many “establishment” economists (and particularly European policy makers). David Beckworth have a number of good posts on this issue (See for example here). We agree that the present fiscal path is unsound in both the US and the euro zone, but if we get monetary policy right (target the NGDP level of the pre-crisis trend) then that would reduce the fiscal stress very significantly – not to speaking of reducing banking problems. Get monetary policy right and then the European and US banking problems and the fiscal policy problems will become manageable (on an overall level).

That said, Market Monetarists do in general not think that fiscal policy on its own can increase nominal spending in the economy so even though we think that fiscal policy should not be a major concern if monetary policy is “right” we also don’t think it is useful to spend a lot of time trying to “stimulate” the economy with fiscal measures. The only role we see for fiscal policy is to ensure long-term productivity growth and growth in the labour supply, but that is certainly not what Paul Krugman has in mind.

11 Comments
by Lars Christensen on February 1, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in David Beckworth, Fiscal policy, MM Research agenda, Monetary policy, NGDP Targeting, Nominal Income Targeting, Paul Krugman, Scott Sumner
Tagged ,

Posted by Lars Christensen on February 1, 2012

https://marketmonetarist.com/2012/02/01/market-monetarism-vs-krugmanism/

Guest blog: Why Price-Level Targeting Pareto Dominates Inflation Targeting (By David Eagle)

Guest blog: Why Price-Level Targeting Pareto Dominates Inflation Targeting

– And a Bizarre Tale of Blind Macroeconomists

By David Eagle

Some central banks throughout the world, including the Central bank of Canada and the Federal Reserve, have been considering Price-Level Targeting (PLT) as an alternative to Inflation Targeting (IT). In this guest blog, I present my argument why PLT Pareto dominates IT.  My argument is simple, and one that many readers will consider so obvious that they would expect most monetary economists to be already aware of this Pareto domination.

Please read the following quotation from Shukayev and Ueberfeldt (2010):

Various papers have suggested that Price-Level targeting is a welfare improving policy relative to Inflation targeting. … Research on Inflation targeting and Price-level Targeting monetary policy regimes shows that a credible Price-level Targeting (PT) regime dominates an Inflation targeting regime.

Reading the above quotation indicates that economists already know that PLT Pareto dominates IT.  However, there is a bizarre twist to this literature, which we will discuss later in this blog.  I ask you to continue patiently reading and trust that the ending to the blog will be well worth the journey, even to market monetarists who oppose both PLT and IT.

In my last guest blog for The Market Monetarist, I discussed what I called the Two Fundamental Welfare Principles of Monetary Economics.  The First Principle concerned the Pareto implications when nominal GDP (NGDP) changes, but real GDP (RGDP) does not.  The Second Principle concerned the Pareto implications when RGDP changes, but NGDP does not.  Since PLT and IT have the same Pareto implications when RGDP changes, but NGDP does not; let us focus on the First Principle.  To do so, assume an economy where RGDP is known with perfect foresight; then the First Principle always applies.

A Nominal-Loan Example – Initial Expectations

Let us again consider a long term nominal loan.  This time, I will explain my argument with an example.  For this example, assume a €200,000 nominal mortgage with a 7.2% p.a. interest rate, compounded monthly, and a term of 15-years, and fixed, fully amortizing nominal monthly payments.  The monthly payment would then be a nominal €1820.09.  Let us assume that individual B borrowed the €200,000 from individual A.   The €1820.09 is the nominal amount B must pay A each month.

Let us also assume that both A and B expect inflation to be 2.4% p.a., compounded monthly, during this period.  They therefore built that expected inflation rate into their 7.2% p.a. negotiated nominal interest rate.[1]   Please note that in Finance, we second-naturedly convert per annum rates to per month rates when the rate is compounded monthly.  Thus, the 7.2% p.a. is actually 0.6% per month, and the 2.4% p.a. inflation rate is 0.2% per month.  While this monthly compounding adds an extra step and a source of confusion, I believe the gain in the realism of the example is worth it.

If inflation is the 2.4% p.a. expected rate, then the real value of the monthly payment at time t will equal 1820.09/(1.002)t where t is the number of months from the loan’s origination.  Since both A and B expect the inflation rate to be 2.4% p.a., compounded monthly, their expected real value[2] of this monthly loan payment at time t will be 1820.09/(1.002)t

As I discussed in my second guest blog on the Market Monetarist, PLT and IT have the same effect on the economy as long as the central bank is successful at meeting its target, whether that target is a price-level target or an inflation target.  Let us assume that under IT, the central bank’s inflation target is 2.4% p.a., whereas under PLT, the central bank’s price-level target at time t is 100(1.002)t.  Hence, under both PLT and IT, the central bank’s initial price-level trajectory is 100(1.002)t.

Scenarios of Missing the Target

When PLT and IT differ is when the central bank misses its target.  Suppose inflation on average over the first year turns out to be 1.2% p.a. instead of the expected  2.4% p.a (both rates are compounded monthly).  To be more clear given the monthly compounding issue, the central bank’s initially trajectory of the price level at one year (or at time t=12 months) was 100(1.002)12 = 102.43; however, the actual price level at one year turned out to be 100(1.001)12 = 101.21.  Under PLT, the central bank will try to return the economy to its initial price-level target of 100(1.002)t.  However, under IT, the central bank would shift its price-level trajectory to 101.21(1.002)t-12, which is less than the initial price-level trajectory of 100(1.002)t.  This is the phenomenon we call price-level base drift, which is caused by the central bank under IT letting bygones be bygones and merely aiming for future inflation to be consistent with its inflation target; the central bank under IT does not try to make up for lost ground.

The real value of the nominal loan payment at time t=12 when the actual inflation rate turns out to be1.2% 1820.09/1.00112 = €1798.39, which is greater than the expected nominal loan payment of €1776.97.

On the other hand, assume that the inflation rate on average over the first year was 3.6% p.a. rather than the targeted 2.4% p.a. This means that the actual price level at one year turned out to be 100(1.003)12 = 103.66.  Under PLT, the central bank would have tried to return the economy to its initial price-level target of 100(1.002)t.  However, under IT, the central bank would shift its price-level trajectory to 103.66(1.002)t-12, which is greater than the initial price-level trajectory of 100(1.002)t.

The real value of the nominal loan payment at time t=12 when the actual inflation rate was 3.6% instead of 2.4% is 1820.09/1.00312 = €1755,83, which is less that the initially expected value of €1776.97.

Comparing Actual to Expectations Beyond 12 Months

Because we are talking about four different scenarios, let PLT– and IT– represent PLT and IT when the inflation rate on average for the first year turns out to be 1.2% rather than 2.4%.  Let PLT+ and IT+ represent PLT and IT when the inflation on average for the first year turns out to be 3.6% rather than the expected 2.4%.  Under all four scenarios, assume that starting in at time t=24, which is 2 years after the loan began, the central bank is able to perfectly meet is price-level trajectory whether under PLT or IT and it does so for the remaining of the 15 years.

Under these assumptions, the real value of the monthly payment under PLT starting at time t=24 will be the same as expected because the central bank will get the price level back to its preannounced price-level target.  However, when the actual inflation rate for the first year turned out being 1.2%, the real value of the nominal monthly payment under IT would be 1820.09/((1.001)12(1.002)t-12) for t≥24 under the assumption the central bank (CB) then meets its target.  On the other hand, when the actual inflation rate for the first year turned out being 3.6%, the real value of the nominal monthly payment under IT would be 1820.09/((1.003)12(1.002)t-12) for t≥24 assuming the CB then meets its target.

The table below shows how the actual real values of these nominal loan payments compare to A and B’s original expectation under all four scenarios.

Note: This table only reports the payment at the end of each year.

That PLT Pareto dominates IT should be obvious from the table.  Under PLT, the central bank (CB) tries to get the real value of nominal loan payments to be back to what borrowers and lenders initially expected.  In other words, under PLT, the CB tries to reverse its mistakes.  Under IT, the CB makes its mistakes permanent.  Note that in the table under PLT, the real value of the nominal loan payments are as expected from time t=24 months on.  However, under IT, the real value of the nominal loan payments are either 1.21% less than expected when the CB fell short of its target, or 1.19% higher than expected when the CB overshot its target.  Clearly, both risk-averse borrowers and risk-averse lenders will be better off with the temporary deviations from expectations under PLT than under the permanent deviations under IT.

Kicking Borrowers or Lenders When They are Down

John Taylor referred to the price-level basis drift as the CB “letting bygones be bygones.”  After writing this blog, I have another view:  I view IT as meaning that when the CB hurts either borrowers or lenders because it is unable to meet its target, then the CB turns around and kicks that down borrower or lender again and again to make them suffer for the duration of their loan.  I have long opposed IT, but writing this blog makes me oppose it even more.  Why cannot other economists see IT for the Pareto damaging regime it is?

The issue of why PLT Pareto dominates IT is simple.  The risk to borrowers and lenders is not inflation risk; it is price-level risk.  To minimize price-level risk, we should not minimize inflation, we should minimize the deviation of the price-level from its expected value.  As such, when a central banking missing its target, it should not keep kicking those suffering from the CB’s past mistakes; the central bank should not make that miss permanent as in IT, but rather the CB should try to reverse that damage as it will try to do under PLT.  Hence PLT Pareto dominates IT.

The Bizarre Tale of the Blind Economists

Thank you all for bearing with me through my argument.  However, from the quote by Shukayev and Ueberfeldt, you knew that the economic profession already knew this.  After all, this is obvious.  (Lars, drink something before you read on; we don’t want your blood to boil too much.)

However, the argument that I gave is not the argument that the literature that Shukayev and Ueverfeldt cited.  That literature did not use the Pareto criterion; it used a loss function that included inflation.  (Yes, Lars, that xxxx loss function again.)

What the literature starting with Svenson (1999) found is that paradoxically when the central bank is trying to minimize a loss function involving inflation, it may actually be better able to do that through PLT than with IT.  That is what Shukayev and Ueverfeld (2010) meant when they said that the literature had found PLT welfare dominates IT.  That literature was referring to “welfare” as defined by their ad hoc loss function, not by their applying the Pareto criterion to the well being of borrowers and lenders.

Economists have been blinded from the obvious by their ad hoc assumption of a loss function involving inflation.  This bizarre twist to this literature is an example of the dangers that economists’ prejudices can enter into their ad hoc loss functions, causing them to miss the obvious.  In this case they have missed the obvious impacts on individual borrowers and lenders of PLT vs. IT.

Of course, there are other targeting regimes than just PLT and IT, but this blog focused on those two.  In my future writing, I plan to explain why NGDP level targeting Pareto dominates NGDP growth rate targeting, although the logic of that is really the same as I have just discussed; we just allow RGDP to vary so that the Second Fundamental Principle of Monetary Economics also applies.

Also, think about how the “kick them while they are down” characteristic of IT is relevant to the aftermath of the Financial crisis concerning the sovereign debt issues in Europe and the debt burdens on mortgage borrowers in the U.S. and elsewhere.  I guess I have to be careful here as I might be accused of starting riots.

References

Eagle, David and Dale Domian (2011), “Quasi-Real-Indexed Mortgages to the Rescue,” working paper delivered at the Western Economic Associating Meetings in San Diego, CA, http://www.cbpa.ewu.edu/~deagle/WEAI2011/QRIMs.doc

Shukayev, Malik and Alexander Ueberfeldt (2010).  “Price Level Targeting: What Is the Right Price?” Bank of Canada Working Paper 2010-8

Svensson, Lars E O, 1999. “Price-level Targeting versus Inflation Targeting: A Free Lunch?,”

Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 31(3), pages 277-95, August.

© Copyright (2012) by David Eagle

[1] The traditional Fisher equation states that i @ r + E[π] where i is the nominal interest rate, r is the real interest rate, and π is the inflation rate.  A more exact relationship we use in Finance is (1+i)=(1+r)(1+E[π) where these rates are per compound period, in this case per month.  According to the approximate and traditional Fisher equation, the real interest rate would be 4.8%, which equals the 7.2% nominal rate less the 2.4% expected inflation (the more precise Fisher equation using the monthly rates concludes the real rate will be 4.79%).

[2] You may note that the real value of the monthly nominal payment is expected to decline over time.  In the mortgage literature, this is known as the “tilt effect” (See Eagle and Domian, 2011).


5 Comments
by Lars Christensen on January 29, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in David Eagle, Lars E. O. Svensson, Monetary policy, Monetary policy rules, NGDP Targeting, Nominal Income Targeting, Price Level Targeting
Tagged ,

Posted by Lars Christensen on January 29, 2012

https://marketmonetarist.com/2012/01/29/guest-blog-why-price-level-targeting-pareto-dominates-inflation-targeting-by-david-eagle/

Please fasten your seatbelt and try to beat the market

Scott Sumner and other Market Monetarists (including myself) favour the use of NGDP futures to guide monetary policy. Other than being forward-looking a policy based on market information ensures that the forecast of the future development is not biased – in the market place biases will cost you on the bottom-line. Similarly, I have earlier suggested that central banks should use prediction markets to do forecasting rather rely on in-house forecasts that potentially could be biased due to political pressures.

A common critique of using “market forecasts” in the conduct of monetary policy is that the market often is wrong and that “herd behaviour” dominates price action – just think of Keynes’ famous beauty contest. This is the view of proponents of what has been termed behavioural finance. I have worked in the financial sector for more than a decade and I have surely come across many “special” characters and I therefore have some understanding for the thinking of behaviour theorists. However, one thing is individual characters and their more or less sane predictions and market bets another thing is the collective wisdom of the market.

My experience is that the market is much more sane and better at predicting than the individual market participants. As Scott Sumner I have a strong believe in the power of markets and I generally think that the financial markets can be described as being (more or less) efficient. The individual is no superman, but the collective knowledge of billions of market participants surely has powers that are bigger than superman’s powers. In fact the market might even be more powerful than Chuck Norris!

Economists continue to debate the empirical evidence of market efficiency, but the so-called Efficient-Market Hypothesis (EMH) can be hard to test empirically. However, on Thursday I got the chance to test the EMH on a small sample of market participants.

I was doing a presentation for 8 Swedish market participants who were on a visit to Copenhagen. I knew that they had to fly back to Stockholm on a fight at 18:10. So I organized a small competition.

I asked the 8 clever Swedes to write down their individual “bets” on when they would hear the famous words “Please fasten your seatbelts” and the person who was closest to the actual time would win a bottle of champagne (markets only work if you provide the proper incentives).

“Fasten your seatbelts” was said at 18:09. The “consensus” forecast from the 8 Swedes was 18:14 – a miss of 5 minutes (the “average” forecast was 8 minutes wrong). Not too bad I think given the number of uncertainties in such a prediction – just imagine what Scandinavian winter can do to the take-off time.

What, however, is more impressive is that only one of the 8 Swedes were better than the consensus forecast. Carl Johan missed by only 1 minute with his forecast of 18:08. Hence, 7 out 8 had a worse forecast than the consensus forecast. Said in another way only one managed to beat the market.

This is of course a bit of fun and games, but to me it also is a pretty good illustration of the fact that the collective wisdom in market is quite efficient.

I showed the results to one of my colleagues who have been a trader in the financial markets for two decades – so you can say he has been making a living beating the market. The first thing he noted was that two of the forecasts was quite off the mark – 14 minutes to early (Erik) and 14 minutes to late (Michael). My colleague said “they would have been dead in the market”. And then he explained that Erik and Michael probably went for the long shot after having rationalized that they probably would not have any chance going for the consensus forecast – after all we were playing “the-winner-takes-it-all” game. Erik and Michael in other words used what Philip Tetlock (inspired by Isaiah Berlin) has called a Hedgehog strategy – contrary to a Fox strategy. “Foxes” tend to place their bets close to the consensus, while “hedgehogs” tend to be contrarians.

My colleague explained that this strategy might have worked with the “market design” I had set up, but in the real world there is a cost of participating in the game. It is not free to go for the long shot. This is of course completely correct and in the real market place you so to speak have to pay an entrance fee. This, however, just means that the incentive to move closer to the consensus is increased, which reinforces the case for the Efficient-Market Hypothesis. But even without these incentives my little experiment shows that it can be extremely hard to beat the market – and even if we played the game over and over again I would doubt that somebody would emerge as a consistent “consensus beater”.

From a monetary policy perspective the experiment also reinforces the case for the use of market based forecasting in the conduct and guidance of monetary policy through NGDP futures or more simple prediction markets. After all how many central bankers are as clever as Carl Johan?

PS Carl Johan works for a hedge fund!

PPS if you are interested in predictions markets you should have a look at Robin Hanson’s blog Overcoming Bias and Chris Masse’s blog Midas Oracle.

UPDATE: See this fantastic illustration of the Wisdom of the Crowd.

Update 2: Scott Sumner has yet another good post on EMH.

6 Comments
by Lars Christensen on January 28, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Efficient-Market Hypothesis, NGDP Targeting, Nominal Income Targeting, Philip Tetlock, Prediction markets, Scott Sumner
Tagged , , ,

Posted by Lars Christensen on January 28, 2012

https://marketmonetarist.com/2012/01/28/please-fasten-your-seatbelt-and-try-to-beat-the-market/

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