Category Nick Rowe
Bitcoin as PAYGO Pension Plan. And Land.
Suppose the government starts a Pay As You GO (unfunded) pension plan. What the young pay into the plan today is what the old take out today. The first generation gets lucky; they get a pension paid out, but never put anything in. And if the plan ever gets wound up, the last generation of […]
If you wanna run hot you gotta run steady
Canadian economist Richard Lipsey would always insist that the Phillips Curve is a curve, and not a straight line. Maybe because wages and prices are stickier down than up. Or maybe because unemployment can't go below 0%. Or both. Here's why that matters for macroeconomic policy: Suppose the central bank wants 2% inflation on average, […]
Loanable Funds Redux
Stop talking about "saving". Talk instead about "demand for assets". You will be happier, and your head will be clearer. Your students too will be happier, and their heads will be clearer. Demand for assets is a thing; saving is a non-thing (a residual). Things are clearer than non-things. Saving is the part of your […]
Two Price-setting Monopolists Meet in the Street
Two price-setting monopolists meet in the street. One says to the other: "I will buy 10 more of your overpriced bananas, but only if you buy 10 more of my overpriced apples in return. Deal?" The second monopolist accepts the deal. They meet in the street again the following day. One says to the other: […]
A Simple Micro/Macro Corona Tax Model
I want something you could teach to first or second year economics students. Using tools they already have in their toolkit. MICRO Start with a Demand and Supply model of the market for haircuts. If we put a $1 per haircut tax on buyers of haircuts, the demand curve shifts vertically down by $1, reducing […]
Relative supply shocks, Unobtainium, Walras’ Law, and the Coronavirus
Here's the basic idea: A temporary 100% output cut in 50% of the sectors (what the Coronavirus does) is very different from a 50% output cut in 100% of the sectors (what our intuitions might expect from supply shocks in aggregate macro models). The former can easily lead to deficient demand in the unaffected sectors; […]
Increased Price Flexibility is Destabilising in New Keynesian Models. (And a Price-Level Path Target is Stabilising)
Start with a very simple New Keynesian "IS" (or "Aggregate Demand") equation: y(t) = E[y(t+1)] – a[r(t)-r*(t)] The "real" (inflation-adjusted) interest rate r(t) is defined as the "one period" nominal interest rate, minus expected inflation for the following "one period". In order to stabilise output y(t), relative to expected future output E[y(t+1)], the central bank […]
Boiling Frogs – Slow Recoveries are Deep Recoveries, with Flatter Phillips Curves
Andy Harless' tweet (about the US economy) got me thinking. "There’s a frog-boiling aspect to this economy. The consistent lack of *rapid* improvement throughout the recovery is enabling us to reach levels of employment that might not otherwise have been attainable." It reminds me of my old post "Short Run 'Speed Limits' on recovery". The […]
Hilbert’s Hotel and the National Debt when r < g
Hilbert's Hotel has infinitely many rooms. Even if every room is full, you can still make room for one more guest in room 1, by moving the guest currently in room 1 to room 2, moving the guest currently in room 2 to room 3, and so on forever. When the rate of interest r […]
On not “running out of ammo”: Monetary Policy as Farmland Price Policy
Imagine a central bank that pegs the price of farmland. It announces it will buy or sell unlimited amounts of farmland for $10,000 per hectare. So "one dollar" doesn't mean some number of ounces of gold; it means "one square meter of farmland". So the central bank owns farmland, which it rents out to farmers […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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