The Promise and Peril of Macroprudential Policy By Barry Eichengreen, Project Syndicate, August 7, 2015. []
U.S. Inflation Undershoots Fed’s 2% Target For 33rd Straight Month By BEN LEUBSDORF, Real Time Economics (blog), The Wall Street Journal, March 2, 2015. [Who'd have thought that it's so hard to create inflation?!]
Something economists thought was impossible is happening in Europe by Matthew Yglesias, Vox, February 5, 2015. [Negative interest rates! How's that even possible??]
A Few Things the Fed Has Done Right By JOHN H. COCHRANE, The Wall Street Journal, Aug. 21, 2014. [The Fed's plan to maintain a large balance sheet and pay interest on bank reserves is good for financial stability.]
Yellen: Monetary policy not the right tool to curb financial excesses BY YLAN Q. MUI, The Washington Post, July 2, 2014. [Interest rates for macroeconomic stabilization, and macroprudential policy for financial stabilization.]
Why monetary policy is so tricky for the Fed By MARK THOMA, MONEYWATCH, June 18, 2014. []
The Federal Reserve was created 100 years ago. This is how it happened. by Neil Irwin, Wonkblog (blog), The Washington Post, December 21, 2013. [Excerpt from the author's book, "The Alchemists: Three Central Bankers and a World on Fire."]
The Federal Reserve at 100: Age shall not weary her The Economist, December 21, 2013. [America’s central bank has become ever more powerful over the past century.]
The perils of falling inflation The Economist, November 9, 2013. [Nobody likes inflation. What's a little less understood is that the lack of inflation could be pretty awful too.]
Renouncing stable prices The Economist, November 9, 2013. [A promise of higher inflation from central banks might spur the recovery—if it is believed.]
A natural long-term rate The Economist, October 26, 2013. [Central banks ignore this century-old observation at their peril.]
The Yellen Fed? Precise and Predictable By CATHERINE RAMPELL, The New York Times, Published: October 9, 2013. [Janet Yellen has been nominated by President Obama to be the next Chairman of the Federal Reserve. What is her approach to monetary policy making? It seems to be rule-based rather than making things up on the fly.]
Taylor’s Rule by John B. Taylor and Prakash Loungani. [How economist John B. Taylor condensed a mass of complicated theory about monetary policy into a single lucid equation.]
Yellen’s Path From Liberal Theorist to Fed Voice for Jobs By BINYAMIN APPELBAUM, The New York Times, Published: October 9, 2013. [Janet Yellen, President Obama’s pick to run the Federal Reserve, has backed aggressive steps to promote employment but shown only limited willingness to tolerate higher inflation.]
What the Fed Does, and Can Do By BINYAMIN APPELBAUM, Economix (blog), The New York Times, October 8, 2013. [A look at the fundamentals of the Federal Reserve.]
Bankers, Workers, Obama and Summers By Paul Krugman, The Conscience of a Liberal (blog), The New York Times, August 31, 2013. [Did U.S. monetary policy successfully tackle the Great Recession? The answer depends on what you think monetary policy is for.]
The Danger of an All-Powerful Federal Reserve By John H. Cochrane, The Wall Street Journal, August 26, 2013. ['Macroprudential' policy thinkers want central banks to micromanage the entire financial system.]
A new toolkit The Economist, Aug 24th 2013. [When central banks have pushed interest rates down to zero, the only tools they have left are quantitative easing and forward guidance. Neither tool is reliable.]
Central Bankers Hone Tools to Pop Bubbles By DAVID WESSEL and ALEX FRANGOS, The Wall Street Journal, July 8, 2013. [Central bankers the world over are searching for ways to halt borrowing binges before they morph into bubbles, and to push lenders to shore up their defenses before the next crisis arrives.]
Predictions on Fed Strategy That Did Not Come to Pass By FLOYD NORRIS, The New York Times, Published: June 28, 2013. [Many markets are now about where they were in 2010 when the Fed announced its program of quantitative easing.]
The Biggest Economic Mystery of 2013: What's Up With Inflation? By MATTHEW O'BRIEN, The Atlantic, JUNE 12 2013.[Despite QE3, core inflation just hit a 50-year low.]
Pro-Inflation Policies Show Signs of Helping the Japanese Economy By HIROKO TABUCHI and GRAHAM BOWLEY, The New York Times, May 9, 2013. [The Bank of Japan’s efforts to reinvigorate the nation’s economy are showing results, at least in the sinking value of the yen.]
10 shocking things you probably didn’t know about central banking by Neil Irwin, Wonkblog (blog), The Washington Post, April 4, 2013.
China Shifts Course, Lets Yuan Drop By BOB DAVIS And LINGLING WEI, The Wall Street Journal, July 26, 2012. [China's central bank is starting to guide the yuan downward against the dollar after two years of trying to boost its value, reflecting concern in Beijing over China's slowing economy—and risking a political fight with the U.S. The key thing is that to fight a recession you must keep your currency's value low. A low exchange rate encourages exports and discourages imports, thereby boosting domestic job creation.]
The idea that inflation might be our friend is gaining traction By Michael Hiltzik, The Los Angeles Times, July 25, 2012. [With the Great Recession dragging on and on, totally non-crazy economists have begun "talking about a temporary rise to 4% to 6% from today's benchmark of 2%" in the Federal Reserve's inflation target.]
A Brief History of Money By JAMES SUROWIECKI, IEEE Spectrum, JUNE 2012. [Or, how we learned to stop worrying and embrace the abstraction.]