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Journal Article
Monetary policy and recent business-cycle experience
Some critics of recent monetary policy have focused on slow M2 growth, claiming that the Federal Reserve is too interested in price stability and is forsaking its growth mandate. Others criticize the Fed for achieving price stability too cautiously and urge the adoption of a rule that seeks to eliminate inflation more quickly. ; R. W. Hafer, Joseph Haslag and Scott Hein examine two alternative monetary policies and gauge their expected impacts on economic activity. Both policies are simulated over the period 198792. One policy, a GNP-targeting rule similar to one proposed by Bennett McCallum, ...
Journal Article
Measuring the policy effects of changes in reserve requirement ratios
The monetary base is the sum of high-powered money and an adjustment factor that measures changes in reserve requirement ratios. This adjustment factor is calculated so that it responds to changes in deposit levels in addition to changes in reserve requirements. Consequently, researchers and policymakers using the monetary base are seeing a mixture of changes implemented through open market operations, discount window borrowings, and reserve requirements, together with nonpolicy actions acting on deposit flows. ; Joseph Haslag and Scott Hein calculate the reserve step index (RSI) to separate ...
Journal Article
Should bank reserves earn interest?
This article examines the effects and desirability of paying interest on required reserves. Scott Freeman and Joseph Haslag demonstrate that a policy of paying interest on reserves can make everyone better off, even if the interest must be financed by a tax on capital. An essential part of this policy is an open market operation that offsets any changes in the value of money.
Journal Article
Output, growth, welfare, and inflation: a survey
In this article, Joseph Haslag surveys both the theoretical results and the empirical evidence relating inflation to per capita real GDP growth. Theory yields mixed results: a permanent change in inflation can raise, lower, or have no impact on per capita output or its rate of growth. The crucial factor seems to be the role money plays in the model economy. However, in most cases, a permanent increase in inflation lowers the average person's welfare. The empirical evidence is similarly inconclusive. A body of evidence suggests that high-inflation countries do grow more slowly than ...
Journal Article
A look at long-term developments in the distribution of income
Developments in the distribution of income have received much attention over the past decade. Several analysts have argued that income gains have gone almost exclusively to the highest paid 20 percent of the population, leaving no gains to the remaining 80 percent. ; Joseph H. Haslag and Lori L. Taylor examine developments in income inequality over the past forty years and estimate which factors account for these changes over time. While some researchers have found that income distribution became more equal during the 1950s and 1960s and then less equal after the mid-1970s, Haslag and Taylor ...
Journal Article
Money growth, supply shocks, and inflation
Recently, economists have examined the monetarist and the expectations-augmented Phillips-curve models of inflation to determine which model is a better predictor of the inflation rate. These studies raise an important question: Does money growth contain information that is useful in predicting the inflation rate? ; Joseph H. Haslag and D'Ann M. Ozment specify a general model of the inflation rate that encompasses both the Phillips-curve and the monetarist models. They find that their general, encompassing model is a better predictor of the inflation rate than either the monetarist model or ...
Journal Article
Monetary aggregates and the rate of inflation
Some economists advocate focusing less emphasis on monetary aggregates because the relationship of monetary aggregates to the ultimate goals of monetary policy is less reliable now than in the past. But the stability of the relationship between money growth and inflation is a testable hypothesis. Joseph Haslag investigates whether money growth is currently as useful a predictor of inflation as it previously has been. He tests three different measures of money growth: the monetary base, M1 and M2. Haslag finds that the relationship remains stable over time. ; Haslag also finds that both the ...
Journal Article
Reliance, composition, and inflation
In this article Joydeep Bhattacharya and Joseph Haslag explore the effect of fiscal policy actions on long-run prices and the inflation rate. They study a model economy in which the central bank is not independent. Indeed, the government explicitly relies on the central bank for a predetermined amount of its revenue. Despite the absence of independence, the central bank does unilaterally control the composition of government paper. Bhattacharya and Haslag show that changes in reliance and composition have long-run impacts on prices and inflation. They conduct two separate policy ...
Journal Article
Reserve requirements, the monetary base, and economic activity