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FED

No Picture

World economy 4th March 2014

The FOMC Board: Secrecy and Obscurantism Do Not Make for Good Democracy

SAO PAULO | Guest post by Benjamin Cole at Historinhas | No serious democrat contends that obscurantism, opacity and secrecy are handmaidens of good government. Indeed, closed doors are properly and universally regarded as cardinal sins, while transparency and accountability as gateways to working democracies. Yet the public is barred from meetings of the most powerful economic policymaking body in the United States—the Federal Open Market Committee, the decision-making body of the Federal Reserve Board, wherein monetary policy is decided.

Ben Bernanke book

World economy 26th February 2014

How much money will Bernanke receive as advance for his book?

SAO PAOLO | By Marcus Nunes | Let´s see. For his memoirs as Fed Chairman Greenspan pocketed 8 million from Penguin. Given PCE inflation Bernanke should get at least 9 million from the same editor. But Bernanke´s book is worth more. Greenspan presided over the Great Moderation. Great Moderations don´t give rise to dramas as does a Great Recession (Lesser Depression).

No Picture

World economy 17th February 2014

FED: “Some questions do have answers”

SAO PAOLO | By Marcus Nunes | In his recent post at Econlog Scott Sumner writes “Questions that have no answers”: There are some questions that have no answers. One example is the question: “Was monetary policy too expansionary during the housing boom?” The only sensible answer is “it depends.” It’s not clear what the Fed was trying to do during this period.

Nunes

World economy 13th February 2014

Scatterbrained Central Bankers

SAO PAULO | By Marcus Nunes via Historinhas | Recently I showed this chart [see above] to press the point against the conventional wisdom that the purpose of the sequence of QEs was to lower long term rates.

New Deal

World economy 24th January 2014

The Fed has Showed Why Fiscal Policy is Still Important

NEW YORK | By Mike Konczal via Next New Deal | One way of judging how the economy evolved in 2013 is to compare it to the Federal Reserve’s projections of it. As some market monetarists believe, these projections aren’t neutral projections of inflation and growth but also a communication of what the Fed thinks about what it can accomplish. So, how did the Fed’s projections for 2013 turn out? Did the economy end up how the Fed said it would when it announced expanded monetary policy?

World economy 15th January 2014

US Currency, the Fed’s Other Liability

LONDON | By Joseph Abate at Barclays | For a global 21st century economy, there is a surprising amount of US paper currency circulating. Total US currency outstanding is approximately $1.2trn, which on a per capita basis works out to $3,800.

No Picture

World economy 20th December 2013

Federal Reserve: “Extended Insurance”

SAO PAULO | By Marcus Nunes | The Fed has never been comfortable with QE3; Many thought that QE ineffective; Bernanke felt compelled to clear the path for Yellen… But it has boosted “Forward Guidance” to make up (or more than make up) for the “taper”.

The Pending Federization of Stanley Fischer

World economy 18th December 2013

The Pending Federization of Stanley Fischer?

SAO PAOLO | By Benjamin Cole at Marcus Nunes’ Historinhas | Slated to be No. 2 at the Fed is Stanley Fischer, who espouses adjustable inflation-targeting more than the locally preferred shooting for steady increases in nominal GDP (Market Monetarism), who knows?—it may amount to the same thing in practice.