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Journal Article
Budget deficits and interest rates
Working Paper
Karl Brunner and U.K. Monetary Debate
Although he was based in the United States, leading monetarist Karl Brunner participated in debates in the United Kingdom on monetary analysis and policy from the 1960s to the 1980s. During the 1960s, his participation in the debates was limited to research papers, but in the 1970s, as monetarism attracted national attention, Brunner made contributions to U.K. media discussions. In the pre-1979 period, he was highly critical of the U.K. authorities? nonmonetary approach to the analysis and control of inflation-an approach supported by leading U.K. Keynesians. In the early 1980s, Brunner had ...
Journal Article
Paul Samuelson and monetary analysis
Working Paper
Seven Fallacies Concerning Milton Friedman's \"The Role of Monetary Policy\"
This paper analyzes Milton Friedman's (1968) article "The Role of Monetary Policy," via a discussion of seven fallacies concerning the article. These fallacies are: (1) "The Role of Monetary Policy" was Friedman?s first public statement of the natural rate hypothesis. (2) The Friedman-Phelps Phillips curve was already presented in Samuelson and Solow's (1960) analysis. (3) Friedman's specification of the Phillips curve was based on perfect competition and no nominal rigidities. (4) Friedman?s (1968) account of monetary policy in the Great Depression contradicted the Monetary History's ...
Working Paper
Trend inflation in advanced economies
We derive estimates of trend inflation for fourteen advanced economies from a framework in which trend shocks exhibit stochastic volatility. The estimated specification allows for time-variation in the degree to which longer-term inflation expectations are well anchored in each economy. Our results bring out the effect of changes in monetary regime (such as the adoption of inflation targeting in several countries) on the behavior of trend inflation. Our estimates expand on the previous literature in several dimensions: For each country, we employ a multivariate approach that pools different ...
Working Paper
Monetary and fiscal theories of the price level: the irreconcilable differences
The fiscal theory of the price level (FTPL) has attracted much attention but disagreement remains concerning its defining characteristics. Some writers have emphasized implications regarding interest-rate pegging and determinacy of RE solutions, whereas others have stressed its capacity to generate equilibria in which price level trajectories mimic those of bonds and differ drastically from those of money supplies. We argue that the FTPL attained prominence precisely because it appeared to provide a theory whose implications differ greatly from conventional monetary analysis; accordingly we ...
Working Paper
Ireland and Switzerland: the jagged edges of the Great Inflation
Ireland and Switzerland both had rising inflation during the early 1970s, but their experiences diverged thereafter, so that they form a rare example of two countries whose inflation rates are poorly correlated with one another over the Great Inflation period. In addition, each of the two countries' records is anomalous in important respects relative to other economies' 1970s inflations. This paper proposes that the monetary policy neglect hypothesis can account for the anomalies, providing a consistent explanation for the Great Inflation across countries. Extensive archival evidence is ...
Working Paper
U.K. inflation targeting and the exchange rate
The United Kingdom*s monetary policy strategy is one of floating exchange rates and inflation forecast targeting, with the targeted measure referring to consumer prices. We consider whether it is welfare-reducing to target inflation in the CPI rather than in a narrower index; and the role of the exchange rate in the transmission of monetary policy actions to CPI inflation. We argue that it is appropriate to model imports as intermediate goods rather than as goods consumed directly by households. This leads to a simpler transmission mechanism of monetary policy, while also offering a ...
Working Paper
The great inflation and early disinflation in Japan and Germany
This paper considers the Great Inflation of the 1970s in Japan and Germany. From 1975 onward, these countries had low inflation relative to other large economies. Traditionally, this success is attributed to stronger discipline on the part of Japan and Germany?s monetary authorities?for example, more willingness to accept temporary unemployment, or greater determination not to monetize government deficits. I instead attribute the success of these countries from the mid-1970s to their governments? and monetary authorities? acceptance that inflation is a monetary phenomenon. Likewise their ...
Working Paper
Macroeconometric equivalence, microeconomic dissonance, and the design of monetary policy
Many recent studies in macroeconomics have focused on the estimation of DSGE models using a system of loglinear approximations to the models' nonlinear equilibrium conditions. The term macroeconometric equivalence encapsulates the idea that estimates using aggregate data based on first-order approximations to the equilibrium conditions of a DSGE model will not be able to distinguish between alternative underlying preferences and technologies. The concept of microeconomic dissonance refers to the fact that the underlying microeconomic differences become important when optimal monetary policy ...