All posts in category Scott Sumner

Why did the A’s stop winning? Scott has the answer

I have been watching Moneyball. It is a great movie, but unlike Scott Sumner and my wife I have actually no clue about movies. However, economics play a huge role in this movie. So that surely made me interested. It is of course very different from Michael Lewis’ excellent book Moneyball, but it is close enough to be an interesting movie even to nerdy economists like myself.

If I was not blogging about monetary policy and theory then there is a good chance I would be blogging about what Bob Tollison called Sportometrics – the economics of sports. It combines two things I love – sports and economics. But why bring Moneyball into a discussion about money and markets? Well, because the story of the Oakland A’s is a pretty good illustration that Scott Sumner is right about the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) – even when it comes to the market of baseball players. So bare with me…

Any American male knows the story about the Oakland A’s but for the rest of you let me just re-tell the story Michael Lewis tells in Moneyball.

The story about the Oakland A’s is the story about the A’s’ general manager Billy Beane who had the view that the market was under-pricing certain skills among baseball players. By investing in players with these under-priced skills he could get a team, which would be more “productivity” than if he had not acknowledged this under-pricing. Furthermore as other teams did not acknowledge this he would increase his chances of winning even against teams with more resources. It’s a beautiful story – especially because theory worked. At least that is how it looked. In the early 2000s the Oakland A’s had much better results than should have been expected given the fact that the A’s was one the teams in the with the lowest budgets in the league. The thesis in Moneyball is that that was possible exactly because Billy Beane consistently used of Sabermetrics – the economics of Baseball.

Whether Lewis’ thesis correct or not is of course debatable, but it is a fact that the Oakland A’s clearly outperformed in this period. However, after Moneyball was published in 2003 the fortune of the Oakland A’s has changed. The A’s has not since then been a consistent “outperformer”. So what happened? Well, Billy Beane was been beaten by his own success and EMH!

Basically Billy Beane was a speculator. He saw a mis-pricing in the market and he speculated by selling overvalued players and buying undervalued players. However, as his success became known – among other things through Lewis’ book – other teams realised that they also could increase their winning chances by applying similar methods. That pushed up the price of undervalued players and the price of overvalued player was pushed down. The market for baseball players simply became (more?) efficient. At least that is the empirical result demonstrated in a 2005-paper “An Economic Evaluation of the Moneyball Hypothesis“ by Jahn K. Hakes and Raymond D. Sauer. Here is the abstract:

“Michael Lewis’s book, Moneyball, is the story of an innovative manager who exploits an inefficiency in baseball’s labor market over a prolonged period of time. We evaluate this claim by applying standard econometric procedures to data on player productivity and compensation from 1999 to 2004. These methods support Lewis’s argument that the valuation of different skills was inefficient in the early part of this period, and that this was profitably exploited by managers with the ability to generate and interpret statistical knowledge. This knowledge became increasingly dispersed across baseball teams during this period. Consistent with Lewis’s story and economic reasoning, the spread of this knowledge is associated with the market correcting the original mis-pricing.”

Isn’t it beautiful? The market is not efficient to beginning with, but a speculator comes in and via the price system ensures that the market becomes efficient. This is EMH applied to the baseball market. Hence, if a market like the baseball market, which surely is about a lot more than making money can be described just remotely as efficient why should we not think that the financial markets are efficient? In the financial markets there is not one Billy Beane, but millions of Billy Beanes.

Every bank, every hedgefund and every pension fund in the world employ Billy Beane-types – I am one of them myself – to try to find mis-pricing in the financial markets. We (all the Billy Beanes in the financial markets) are using all kind of different methods – some of them very colourful like technical analysis – but the aggregated result is that the markets are becoming more efficient.

Like Billy Bean the speculators in the financial markets are constantly scanning the markets for mis-priced assets and they are constantly looking for new methods to forecast the market prices. So why should the financial markets be less efficient than the baseball market? I think Scott is right – EMH is a pretty good description of the financial markets or rather I haven’t seen any other general theory that works better across asset classes.

——————–

PS there is of course also the possibility that Billy Beane was just lucky – “The sample is simply not big enough” (“Peter Brand” in the movie about why his theory initially did not work).

PPS  In Moneyball the movie the term “Winning streak” is used. That is a bit of a turn off for anybody who has studied a bit of sportometrics. There is not such a thing as a winning streak or a “hot hand” – at least that can not be proved empirically.

PPPS Moneyball is not really about Billy Beane, but rather about Paul DePodesta. In the Moneyball Paul DePodesta is renamed Peter Brand.

PPPPS I have no clue about baseball and find it rather boring…that must be the ultimate disclaimer.

5 Comments
by Lars Christensen on February 23, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Efficient-Market Hypothesis, Scott Sumner
Tagged , , , , ,

Posted by Lars Christensen on February 23, 2012

https://marketmonetarist.com/2012/02/23/why-did-the-as-stop-winning-scott-has-the-answer/

NGDP level targeting – the true Free Market alternative

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

Tyler has three answers to his own question:

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

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

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


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

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

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

This is what I have called Selgin’s Monetary Credo:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted by Lars Christensen on February 22, 2012

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

Clark Warburton: A much overlooked monetarist pioneer

When I started this blog it was my plan to write a lot about Clark Warburton. I must admit I have failed to do this, but I still hope to be able to give Clark Warburton the attention he deserves.

Nearly no economists know of Clark Warburton and everybody knows about Milton Friedman. However, the fact is that a lot of what Milton Friedman said about monetary policy had been said by Clark Warburton 10-20 years earlier. Unfortunately nobody wanted to listen to Warburton.

In the introduction to Milton Friedman’s and Anna Schwartz’s “Monetary History” they wrote:

“We owe especially heavy debt to Clark Warburton. His detailed and valuable comments on several drafts have importantly affected the final version. In addition, time and again, as we came to some conclusion that seemed to us novel and original, we found he had been there before.”

Said in another way – Warburton might has well have written “Monetary History” – and to some extent he did.

In the articles “The Volume of Money and The Price Level Between the World Wars” (1944) and “Monetary Theory, Full Production and the Great Depression” (1945) Warburton basically presented the monetarist explanation of the Great Depression – almost 20 years before Friedman and Schwartz (1963).

Scott Sumner has recently tried to argue why the fiscal multiplier is zero if the central bank is targeting any nominal target. For those interested in this discussion should read Warburton’s 1945 article on “The Monetary Theory of Deficit Spending”. Read it and you should pretty fast become convinced that Scott is right – of course Warburton knew that in 1945. My own view that there is no such thing as fiscal policy (and everything is monetary policy) is also clearly inspired by Warburton.

Warburton’s main contribution to American monetary history and theory are collected in the book “Depression, Inflation and Monetary Policy” (including the above mentioned articles). Anyone who wants to understand monetary theory should read this book. The book, along with Leland Yeagers “The Fluttering Veil” are the two most important books in relation to the understanding of the monetarist branch, we could call disequilibrium monetarism (DM). DM is in many ways between the Austrian school and more traditional monetarists like Milton Friedman, Karl Brunner and Allan Meltzer. DM has undoubtedly had a major influence on Free Banking theorist such as George Selgin, but also on modern Austrian economists like Steven Horwitz. As such DM pioneers like Leland Yeager and Clark Warburton are also important from Market Monetarist perspective.

I hope to write more on Warburton in the future. He work surely deserves a lot more attention.

For a good introduction to Warburton’s work see Michael Bordo’s and Anna Schwartz’s article “Clark Warburton: Pioneer Monetarist”

7 Comments
by Lars Christensen on February 19, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Clark Warburton, Leland Yeager, Reading recommendations, Scott Sumner
Tagged , ,

Posted by Lars Christensen on February 19, 2012

https://marketmonetarist.com/2012/02/19/clark-warburton-a-much-overlooked-monetarist-pioneer/

What can Niskanan teach us about central bank bureaucrats?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted by Lars Christensen on February 16, 2012

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

Boettke’s important Political Economy questions for Market Monetarists

Peter Boettke over at Coordination Problem a post in which he challenge Market Monetarists to think about some political economy questions.

Here is Peter:

“Now I understand that much has changed since 1962 about the state of the art in central banking and the debate over rules versus discretion.  But after 2008, can we really say that anymore?

So while I might agree with the technical theory point about monetary equilibrium, the question remains as to what institutional arrangement best fits.  Central banking as a system simply might not be capable of operationalizing the lessons from monetary equilibrium theory.  The ability of the system to pursue optimal policy rules may beyond its reach and not merely for reasons of interest group manipulation, but due to an epistemic constraint.  That is actually how I read the critical aspects of Selgin’s The Theory of Free Banking.

So when I focus on the following passage of Hayek about liberal policy in general, I wonder whether the “market monetarist” can actually pass this test:

Libeal or individualist policy must be essentially long-run policy; the present fashion to concentrate on short-run effects, and to justify this by the argument that ‘in the long run we are all dead,’ leads inevitably to the reliance on orders adjusted to the particular circumstances of the moment in the place of rules couched in terms of typical situations. (Individualism and Economic Order, p. 20)

If we add to this, the point Hayek makes in The Constitution of Liberty, that the misunderstanding of the costs of inflation by economists (due to the equilibrium preoccupation) combined with an obsessive fear of deflation in monetary policy will lead to a regime of permanent inflation, then I think the necessary contemplation about the political economy of monetary policy might question the robustness of even the most careful presentation of market monetarism.”

I think Peter raises some very important issues. Basically Peter argue that it is more important that we discuss the institutional arrangement guiding the monetary regime rather than just the day-to-day conduct of monetary policy. I am happy that Peter is raising these issues. I have often argued that Market Monetarists should never argue in favour of “stimulus” in the keynesian discretionary fashion and rather stress that we are strongly in favour of rules. We are certainly intellectually indebted to Hayek and Friedman.

Here a is few earlier posts in which I argue strongly for rules in the conduct of monetary policy:

NGDP targeting is not a Keynesian business cycle policy

NGDP targeting is not about ”stimulus”

Adam Posen calls for more QE – that’s fine, but…

Selgin’s Monetary Credo – Please Dr. Taylor read it!

We favour Futarchy in monetary policy – we want markets rather than policy makers to determine monetary policy. Scott Sumner has argued in favour of using NGDP futures to directly determine monetary policy. I while endorse Scott’s proposal for NGDP futures I have further argued that central banks should use predictions markets to do macroeconomic forecasting and for implementation of monetary policy. “Market” in Market Monetarism is not just a buzzword – it is an integral part of our thinking. In fact I have earlier argued that futures based NGDP level targeting could be seen as privatisation strategy and a first step toward the total privatisation of the supply of money. Not all Market Monetarists bloggers are in favour of Free Banking, but there is no doubt that a number of us are highly sympathetic to the idea of privatisation of the monetary regime.

So I think we have both been thinking about and answered Peter’s question. Peter, there is no reason to worry – we are loyal disciples of Hayek and Friedman – also when it comes to institutional questions.

21 Comments
by Lars Christensen on February 11, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in MM Research agenda, Monetary institutions, Peter Boettke, Reading recommendations, Scott Sumner
Tagged

Posted by Lars Christensen on February 11, 2012

https://marketmonetarist.com/2012/02/11/boettkes-important-political-economy-questions-for-market-monetarists/

I am blaming Murray Rothbard for my writer’s block

I have promised to write an article about monetary explanations for the Great Depression for the Danish libertarian magazine Libertas (in Danish). The deadline was yesterday. It should be easy to write it because it is about stuff that I am very familiar with. Friedman’s and Schwartz’s “Monetary History”, Clark Warburton’s early monetarist writings on the Great Depression. Cassel’s and Hawtrey’s account of the (insane) French central bank’s excessive gold demand and how that caused gold prices to spike and effective lead to an tigthening of global monetary conditions. This explanation has of course been picked up by my Market Monetarists friends – Scott Sumner (in his excellent, but unpublished book on the Great Depression), Clark Johnson’s fantastic account of French monetary history in his book “Gold, France and the Great Depression, 1919-1932” and super star economic historian Douglas Irwin.

But I didn’t finnish the paper yet. I simply have a writer’s block. Well, that is not entirely true as I have no problem writing these lines. But I have a problem writing about the Austrian school’s explanation for the Great Depression and I particularly have a problem writing about Murray Rothbard’s account of the Great Depression. I have been rereading his famous book “America’s Great Depression” and frankly speaking – it is not too impressive. And that is what gives me the problem – I do not want to be too hard on the Austrian explanation of the Great Depression, but dear friends the Austrians are deadly wrong about the Great Depression – maybe even more wrong than Keynes! Yes, even more wrong than Keynes – and he was certainly very wrong.

So what is the problem? Well, Rothbard is arguing that US money supply growth was excessive during the 1920s. Rothbard’s own measure of the money supply  apparently grew by 7% y/y on average from 1921 to 1929. That according to Rothbard was insanely loose monetary policy. But was it? First of all, money supply growth was the strongest in the early years following the near-Depression of 1920-21. Hence, most of the “excessive” growth in the money supply was simply filling the gap created by the Federal Reserve’s excessive tightening in 1920-21. Furthermore, in the second half of the 1920s money supply started to slow relatively fast. I therefore find it very hard to argue as Rothbard do that US monetary policy in anyway can be described as being very loose during the 1920s. Yes, monetary conditions probably became too loose around 1925-7, but that in no way can explain the kind of collapse in economic activity that the world and particularly the US saw from 1929 to 1933 – Roosevelt finally did the right thing and gave up the gold standard in 1933 and monetary easing pulled the US out of the crisis (later to return again in 1937). Yes dear Austrians, FDR might have been a quasi-socialist, but giving up the gold standard was the right thing to do and no we don’t want it back!

But why did the money supply grow during the 1920s? Rothbard – the libertarian freedom-loving anarchist blame the private banks! The banks were to blame as they were engaging in “pure evil” – fractional reserve banking. It is interesting to read Rothbard’s account of the behaviour of banks. One nearly gets reminded of the Occupy Wall Street crowd. Lending is seen as evil – in fact fractional reserve banking is fraud according to Rothbard. How a clever man like Rothbard came to that conclusion continues to puzzle me, but the fact is that the words “prohibit” and “ban” fill the pages of Rothbard’s account of the Great Depression. The anarchist libertarian Rothbard blame the Great Depression on the fact that US policy makers did not BAN fractional reserve banking. Can’t anybody see the the irony here?

Austrians like Rothbard claim that fractional reserve banking is fraud. So the practice of private banks in a free market is fraud even if the bank’s depositors are well aware of the fact that banks do not hold 100% reserve? Rothbard normally assumes that individuals are rational and it must follow from simple deduction that if you get paid interest rates on your deposits then that must mean that the bank is not holding 100% reserves otherwise the bank would be asking you for a fee for keeping your money safe. But apparently Rothbard do not think that individuals can figure that out. I could go on and on about how none-economic Rothbard’s arguments are – dare I say how anti-praxeological Rothbard’s fraud ideas are. Of course fractional reserve banking is not fraud. It is a free market phenomenon. However, don’t take my word for it. You better read George Selgin’s and Larry White’s 1996 article on the topic “In Defense of Fiduciary Media – or, We are Not Devo(lutionists), We are Misesians”. George and Larry in that article also brilliantly shows that Rothbard’s view on fractional reserve banking is in conflict with his own property right’s theory:

“Fractional-reserve banking arrangements cannot then be inherently or inescapably fraudulent. Whether a particular bank is committing a fraud by holding fractional reserves must depend on the terms of the title-transfer agreements between the bank and its customers.

Rothbard (1983a, p. 142) in The Ethics of Liberty gives two examples of fraud, both involving blatant misrepresentations (in one, “A sells B a package which A says contains a radio, and it contains only a pile of scrap metal”). He concludes that “if the entity is not as the seller describes, then fraud and hence implicit theft has taken place.” The consistent application of this view to banking would find that it is fraudulent for a bank to hold fractional reserves if and only if the bank misrepresents itself as holding 100percent reserves, or if the contract expressly calls for the holding of 100 percent reserves.’ If a bank does not represent or expressly oblige itself to hold 100 percent reserves, then fractional reserves do not violate the contractual agreement between the bank and its customer (White 1989, pp. 156-57). (Failure in practice to satisfy a redemption request that the bank is contractually obligated to satisfy does of course constitute a breach of contract.) Outlawing voluntary contractual arrangements that permit fractional reserve-holding is thus an intervention into the market, a restriction on the freedom of contract which is an essential aspect of private property rights.”

Another thing that really is upsetting to me is Rothbard’s claim that Austrian business cycle theory (ABCT) is a general theory. That is a ludicrous claim in my view. Rothbard style ABCT is no way a general theory. First of all it basically describes a closed economy as it is said that monetary policy easing will push down interest rates below the “natural” interest rates (sorry Bill, Scott and David but I think the idea of a natural interest rates is more less useless). But what determines the interest rates in a small open economy like Denmark or Sweden? And why the hell do Austrians keep on talking about the interest rate? By the way interest rates is not the price of money so what do interest rates and monetary easing have to do with each other? Anyway, another thing that mean that ABCT certainly not is a general theory is the explicit assumption in ABCT – particularly in the Rothbardian version – that money enters the economy via the banking sector. I wonder what Rothbard would have said about the hyperinflation in Zimbabwe. I certainly don’t think we can blame fractional reserve banking for the hyperinflation in Zimbabwe.

Anyway, I just needed to get this out so I can get on with writing the article that I promised would be done yesterday!

PS Dear GMU style Austrians – you know I am not talking about you. Clever Austrians like Steve Horwitz would of course not argue against fractional reserve banking and I am sure that he thinks that Friedman’s and Schwartz’s account of the Great Depression makes more sense than “America’s Great Depression”.

PPS not everything Rothbard claims in “America’s Great Depression” is wrong – only his monetary theory and its application to the Great Depression. To quote Selgin again: “To add to the record, I had the privilege of getting to know both Murray and Milton. Like most people who encountered him while in their “Austrian” phase, I found Murray a blast, not the least because of his contempt for non-Misesians of all kinds. Milton, though, was exceedingly gracious and generous to me even back when I really was a self-styled Austrian. For that reason Milton will always seem to me the bigger man, as well as the better monetary economist.”

PPPS David Glasner also have a post discussing the Austrian school’s view of the Great Depression.

Update: Steve Horwitz has a excellent comment on this post over at Coordination Problem and Peter Boettke – also at CP – raises some interesting institutional questions concerning monetary policy and is asking the question whether Market Monetarists have been thinking about these issues (We have!).

50 Comments
by Lars Christensen on February 11, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Austrian economics, Douglas Irwin, Federal Reserve, George Selgin, Gold Standard, Gustav Cassel, Larry White, Monetary institutions, New Casselian economics, Scott Sumner, Steven Horwitz, The Great Depression
Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Posted by Lars Christensen on February 11, 2012

https://marketmonetarist.com/2012/02/11/i-am-blaming-murray-rothbard-for-my-writers-block/

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
Tagged , , , ,

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/

Christensen’s “postmodernist mind fuck”

I have now been blogging since early October last year and I truly enjoy it. Most of my readers seem to be happy about what I write and I believe that most of my readers and commentators are quite Market Monetarist sympathies. However, there is one exception – lefty blogger Mike Sax. Yes, I called him lefty – I don’t think Mike would not disagree with this (if he called me a libertarian that would not make me angry either…). Mike is actually reading the Market Monetarist blogs and I think he pretty much understands what we are talking about. I will readily acknowledge that despite the fact that I probably disagree with 99% of what he has to say about economics and monetary theory.

Today I ran into a comment Mike wrote a couple a days ago about the debate about fiscal policy between on the one side the New Keynesian (Old Keynesians??) and on the other side the Market Monetarists  (and John Cochrane). Even though Mike is extremely critical of  my views I actually had quite a lot of fun reading it.

Here is Mike Sax (and yes, believe it or not the name of his blog is “Diary of a Republican Hater”…):

“If you want to get the endgame of this whole market monetarist phenomenon I say put down Scott Sumner and check out Lars Christensen. His post is called simply Market Monetarist, and indeed the very name of market monetarism is actually his coinage rather than Scott.

During the interminable tangent-a rather amusing three ring circus that Sumner led-Lars wrote a post called “There is no such thing as fiscal policy.” This is a pretty radical attack on fiscal policy. From Cochrane claiming that fiscal policy can’t work-till his bout face today-and Sumner saying it can never be as effective as monetary policy in reviving demand-we have Lars claiming it simply doesn’t exist.

Whoa! I guess if it doesn’t even exist we can’t use it. Ever. It’s another postmodernist mind fuck evidently. What are Cochrane and Christensen going to say to each other now? I will suggest that if you want to make any sense of market monetarism read Lars. You get it much more concisely and to the point if nothing else.

Now here is his point. In a barter economy, he tells us, there can be no fiscal stimulus. Why is this? Because, “As there is no money we can not talk about sticky prices and wages. In a barter economy you have to produce to consume. Hence, there is no such thing as recessions in a barter economy and hence no excess capacity and no unemployment. Therefore there is no need for Keynesian style fiscal policy to “boost” demand.”

Fiscal policy can redistribute income but not effect demand.

“in a barter economy fiscal policy is a purely redistributional exercise, but it will have no impact on “aggregate demand”

http://marketmonetarist.com/2012/01/18/there-is-no-such-thing-as-fiscal-policy/

Ok but maybe the title of this post is wrong. It shouldn’t say there is no such thing as fiscal policy just fiscal stimulus.

The reason we believe that fiscal policy can impact demand is because of money illusion.

“for fiscal policy to influence aggregate demand we need to introduce money and sticky prices and wages in our model. This in my view demonstrates the first problem with the Keynesian thinking about fiscal policy. Keynesians do often not realise that money is completely key to how they make fiscal policy have an impact on aggregate demand.”

What NGDP targeting is meant to do is to take away money illusion by taking away this misleading effect of the velocity of money.

“Under NGDP level targeting M*V will be fixed or grow at a fixed rate. That means that we is basically back in the Arrow-Debreu world and any increase in G must lead to a similar drop in D as M*V is fixed.”

The goal of NGDP targeting therefore as Sumner, Lars, David Glasner, et al, conceive it is a return to in effect a barter economy. Money is therefore for them kind of like the root of all evil or at least original sin. Like for old fashioned philosophers appearance was the veil that led us to misapprehend true existence, so for the market monetarists, money is the veil that makes us misapprehend the truth of the economy.

Yet Lars does admit that fiscal stimulus can work or seem to work due the the Circe of money.

“lets say that the central bank is just an agent for the government and that any increase in G is fully funded by an increase in the money supply (M). Then an increase in G will lead to a similar increase in nominal income M*V. With this monetary policy reaction function “fiscal policy” is highly efficient. There is, however, just one problem. This is not really fiscal policy as the increase in nominal GDP is caused by the increase in M. The impact on nominal income would have been exactly the same if M had been increased and G had been kept constant – then the entire adjustment on the right hand side of (3) would then just have increased D.”

Yeah let’s say that. Actually I think this accurately describes the actual historical record of the Fed between the time of Marriner Eccles and the 1970 when Milton Friedman started whispering sweet nothings in Nixon’s ear.

To be sure Christensen claims that this effect is still misleading as it’s the printed money-monetary policy-that does the real heavy lifting. It would have been exactly the same had the supply of money been increased and government spending been kept constant.

In a way these claims by Lars actually straddles the line with MMTers who do actually argue that it makes no difference whether the Fed or Treasury prints the money but where they go from here is obviously more or less diametrically opposed to what the MMers do with it. The Market Monetarists vs. The Modern Monetary Theorists… Talk about a battle royale.

Again though Lars should call this “There is no such thing as fiscal stimulus.” It seems to me though that even if you believe that fiscal stimulus is a fiction it may nevertheless have proved to be as the belief in God once was.

For what’s curious is during the time we believed fiscal stimulus we had the Keynesian era. Since we gave it up we have had an anti-Keynesian era. During this anti-K ear we have seen the wages of median Americans stagnate. Is this all coincidence? What do you think?

In any case Sumner’s oft repeated argument that the fiscal multiplier is roughly zero because any fiscal stimulus will be followed by monetary tightening according to Lars depends on the policy of the Fed. It wasn’t true during the Keynesian ear. However in this anti inflation era, post Volcker and of the Taylor Rule-the much lauded Great Moderation-it is true of how the Fed has in fact acted. This doesn’t prove that fiscal stimulus doesn’t work but rather the Fed is off the rails and probably could use the kind of reforms Barney Frank wanted for it. Namely not ending the Fed as Ron Paul says but rather ending its “independence.””

Frankly speaking, Mike of course have no clue about economics, but he is 100% right – I should of course have said that there is no such thing as fiscal stimulus (and not policy), but then he would have had nothing to write about. Mike don’t know this, but I hate everything “postmodernist” so he succeed with his low blow.

Anyway, let me say it again fiscal policy is not important. People like Paul Krugman (and Mike Sax) think that we need massive fiscal stimulus to take us out of the slump in Europe and the US and some think (for example European policy makers) think that the only solution is fiscal austerity. I think both parties are wrong – lets fix monetary policy and then we don’t have to worry (too much) about fiscal policy (other than balancing the government budgets in the medium to long run…). This is why I find it so utterly borrowing to discuss fiscal policy…

PS Mike mentions Battle Royal…he is unaware that that is my favourite Japanese movie.

16 Comments
by Lars Christensen on January 31, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in David Glasner, Fiscal policy, Scott Sumner
Tagged , , , ,

Posted by Lars Christensen on January 31, 2012

https://marketmonetarist.com/2012/01/31/christensens-postmodernist-mind-fuck/

« Older Posts
Newer Posts »