Monthly Archives: November 2009
Interest rate targeting as a social construction
We always knew that interest rate targeting could never work in theory, because it left the price level indeterminate. But it seemed to work well in practice, and kept inflation close to target, so we eventually learned to overcome our theoretical squeamishness and embrace it as part of the reality of how modern central banks […]
Blogging in Cuba: Generation Y
Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez reports being beaten up and abducted by Cuban…quasi-authorities, for being a "counter-revolutionary" (i.e. having an independent blog). Check out her blog Generation Y.
Why current AD depends on expected future AD: Scott Sumner in ISLM
Scott Sumner argues that nominal interest rates are near zero because monetary policy (specifically expected future monetary policy) is too tight. He argues that tight (expected future) monetary policy makes expected inflation low, which makes nominal rates low. He also argues that tight (expected future) monetary policy makes real rates low as well. I want […]
Towards a Monetarist theory of Neo-Chartalism
I am going to start with an orthodox monetarist approach, make one trivial semantic change, and see how far I can get in deriving Neo–Chartalist results. The semantic change is to change what I mean by "fiscal policy". It's an unconventional definition of fiscal policy, from a monetarist perspective, but I don't think a monetarist […]
Churches and Central Banks
If a social scientist wanted to understand what happens in church, he could ask the churchgoers themselves for an account of what they do in church. But the social scientist's account of what happens in church need not be the same as the churchgoers' account. If an economist wanted to understand what happens in a […]
A preliminary estimate for Canadian 2009Q3 GDP growth
This is an update to my series of posts (2009Q1, 2009Q2) that uses Statistics Canada's estimates for monthly GDP estimates (available for the first two months of the previous quarter) and the LFS data for the last month of the quarter to provide an estimate for GDP growth in the previous quarter. Statistics Canada will […]
More on the ineffectiveness of minimum wages as an anti-poverty measure
The most recent issue of Canadian Public Policy has this short note: Minimum Wage Increases as an Anti-Poverty Policy in Ontario: In this article, we consider the possibility of alleviating poverty in Ontario through minimum wage increases. Using survey data from 2004 to profile low wage earners and poor households, we find two important results. […]
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