Category Nick Rowe
A monetary policy target can only be defeated by a better monetary policy target
"Monetary policy can cause bad things to happen in financial markets, which can cause bad things to happen in the rest of the economy. Therefore NGDP targeting is wrong." I made up that quote. But if I had to summarise M.C.K.'s long article in two short sentences, that is how I would do it.
University retention and males
Carleton University admits more male students than females. But it graduates more female students than males. Why? What, if anything, can and should we do about it? (I don't know.) The public access data is here. (Datacubes is a lovely tool, but it takes a little time learning how to use it.) You can see […]
Simple models and the macroeconomics of price controls
I hear that Argentina has imposed [update: economy-wide] price controls. I know next to nothing about Argentina, but I have spent some time thinking about the macroeconomics of price controls. I can easily build a simple macroeconomic model showing that price controls are a good thing that can make everybody better off. I cannot build […]
(Why) Is inflation finally falling?
This post is premature. It's too early to say for sure. And I don't have any real answers to explain this (possibly non-) event. I'm trying to fit together a number of things that have been puzzling me.
Copy/paste/re-write; student essays as collages
This is not about economics. Maybe it's about teaching. Maybe it's about the internet. I only have anecdata, and it is compromised by sample selection bias. I don't have any theory, and I don't have a proposed policy.
Two extreme fiscal/monetary worlds
I want to imagine two extreme worlds, at opposite ends of the spectrum of possibilities. In the first world (the "fiscal" world), all financial liabilities of the government are non-monetary liabilities, "bonds", that cannot be used as media of exchange. People use something else for money. Maybe gold, or maybe money issued by commercial banks. […]
Do sofas refute monetarism?
Start with a very monetarist model of the monetary system. Whatever that means to you. Now let's add sofas to the model. Suppose that every year1% (say) of the monetary base disappeared down the back of the sofa, never to be seen again. Would that refute monetarism?
Did inflation targeting make inflation stickier?
I think my last post was very clear. Inflation targeting failed. I know this post won't be clear. But this post tries to answer the question that my last post begs to be answered. Why did inflation targeting fail? I used to think that if the Bank of Canada succeeded in keeping inflation on target, […]
The Bank of Canada’s success and failure
The Bank of Canada has been very successful in keeping inflation on target. Which is what the Bank of Canada was supposed to do. But keeping inflation on target has failed to prevent recessions caused by deficient aggregate demand. Which is what keeping inflation on target was supposed to do. The problem is not the […]
Are there “Peso Problem” recessions?
Suppose monetary policy never changed for 99 years. Suppose nothing ever changed for 99 years. Would it be possible for there to be a deficient Aggregate Demand recession for 99 years? Why wouldn't prices adjust? Wouldn't 99 years be long enough for prices to adjust?
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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