The notion that “easy money” created asset booms is levelled (famously by Austrian school economists such as von Mises and Hayek) against the 1920s boom and by a range of commentators about the Great Moderation boom. In both cases, the Fed (dominated by Benjamin Strong as New York Fed Governor up to 1928 and by Alan Greenspan as Fed Chair 1987-2006) is held to be to […]
By Lorenzo
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Posted in Economics, History, Law, Public Policy, Technology
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Also tagged Alan Greenspan, asset markets, Austrian business cycle, Austrian school, Bank of France, Benjamin Strong, bimetallism, bubble economy, china, ECB, expectations, FDR, Frederich Hayek, George L Harrison, GFC, gold standard, Great Depression, Great Moderation, Great Recession, housing booms, India, lost decades, milton friedman, natural interest rate, NIRA, permanent income effect, railway manias, Roger W. Garrison, silver standard, theory of the unsustainable boom, Time and Money, US Federal Reserve, von Mises, world war one
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April 15, 2013 – 10:30 am
Milton Friedman’s 1967 Presidential Address (pdf) is something monetary economists regularly say anyone interested in monetary economics should read. Having recently read it, I have come to the conclusion that it is something anyone interested in monetary economics should read. As is normal with Friedman, it is beautifully clear, one of his great attributes. His analysis […]
By Lorenzo
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Posted in Economics, Public Policy
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Also tagged central banks, Chuck Norris Effect, David Glasner, Edmund Phelps, equation of exchange, expectations, Goodhart's Law, Inflation, inflation targeting, interest rates, Irving Fisher, Knut Wicksell, Lars Christensen, Market Monetarism, milton friedman, monetary economics, monetary velocity, natural rate of interest, natural rate of unemployment, Paul Krugman, Phillips Curve, Scott Sumner, stagflation, unemployment
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There is a joke in modern American politics–the Republicans want a big defence force they don’t want to use anywhere and the Democrats want a small defence force they want to use everywhere. Implicit in the joke is that the Republicans like military spending and the Democrats don’t. Because the right is “strong” on defence […]
By Lorenzo
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Posted in Britain, Defence, Economics, History, Politics, Public Policy, Taxation, The Left, The Right
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Also tagged al gore, alliance building, Anglo-French Entente, Anglo-Japanese alliance, appeasement, British Liberal Party, Cold War, deficit, dreadnoughts, Edouard Daladier, estate taxes, fixed exchange rates, france, Franco-Russian alliance, Germany, grand strategy, Gulf War, High Seas Fleet, hitler, house of lords, Inflation, japan, John Kerry, Kevin Narizny, Korean War, Lebensraum, naval arms race, nazi germany, Paul Volcker, People's budget, Popular Front, President George W. Bush, re-armanent, Ronald Reagan, Second Reich, Spanish-American War, US democrats, US Federal Reserve, US republicans, Vietnam War, Weltpolitik, WWI, WWII
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October 29, 2012 – 7:30 am
Skepticlawyer’s excellent post on the GFC examines the financial crisis. The post below is concerned with the time period for monetary policy. While, as I note below, the collapse in total spending clearly worsened the GFC, this post is more about how to avoid or minimise recessions and, particularly, events such as the Great Recession. […]
By Lorenzo
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Posted in Australia, Economics, Public Policy
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Also tagged commodity prices, exchange rates, GFC, Great Recession, inflation targeting, Jim Belshaw, NGDP targeting, RBA, US Federal Reserve
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September 19, 2012 – 10:30 am
One of my basic analytical principles is that things reveal their nature in history (including the history that has not happened yet — that is, what has happened is not the sum of possibilities). If one wishes to understand current events, then cultivate a sense of history for the past is the cause of the […]
By Lorenzo
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Posted in Australia, Economics, History, Public Policy
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Also tagged Bundesbank, central banks, ECB, Eurozone, Evsey Domar, gold standard, Jorg Bibow, Mario Drahi, public debt, Reserve Bank of Australia, Scott Sumner, the Fed, Walter Russel Mead
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August 22, 2012 – 6:40 am
A perennial discussion in monetary policy is rules versus discretion. Should the central bank be constrained to follow a policy rule or should it have policy discretion? I find this debate generally muddled both in the means-versus-ends question and what is the proper underlying concern. Is the concern bad policy or unclear policy? With constraining […]
It is a matter of some comment that the public debt burden of the United States has recently increased somewhat. Upward, ever upward And that this surge in debt has come from increased spending A more elevated state More than from falling revenues. Buy now, pay later (The “negative deficits” in Truman’s and Clinton’s second terms meant the US […]
By Lorenzo
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Posted in Australia, Economics, History, Public Policy
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Also tagged bill clinton, central bank, fiscal stimulus, Harry S Truman, Keynesian school, Pax Britannica, public debt, UK, US
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Dr Horwitz’s thoughtful and generous response to my original post is useful in clarifying what a serious Austrian school economist thinks and correcting some of my misapprehensions. It seems to have been a useful exercise, to provide reactions to Austrian commentary from someone much more familiar with mainstream economics. Even better, I now have something I […]
By Lorenzo
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Posted in Australia, Britain, Economics, Entrepreneurs, History, Public Policy
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Also tagged Austrian business cycle, Austrian school, credit, deflation, disinflation, Eric Hoffer, Frederich Hayek, housing market, Inflation, interest rates, John Maynard Keynes, macroeconomics, Matt Ridley, monetary economics, Sport, Steve Horwitz, unemployment, von Mises
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I find Steve Horwitz, along with George Selgin (prominent advocate of free banking and supporter of a productivity norm [pdf] for monetary policy), the most accessible of contemporary Austrian school economists as they are both clear writers who seek to engage with those who are not of their school and are refreshingly free of the nastiness […]
By Lorenzo
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Posted in Economics, Entrepreneurs, History, Philosophy
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Also tagged Austrian business cycle, Austrian school, capital, David Glasner, deflation, Friedrich Hayek, George Selgin, Inflation, John Maynard Keynes, labour markets, Scott Sumner, Steve Horwitz, Tyler Cowen
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August 11, 2011 – 8:01 pm
[SL: there was a time, not so long ago, when conservatives and libertarians could afford to be smug about the intellectual miasma in which left-liberals and progressives had lost themselves. It is unfortunate–and does us little credit–that when a decent number of left-liberals reacted in horror to the colonisation of their political tradition by postmodernism […]
By skepticlawyer
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Posted in Economics, Guest Post, Law, Philosophy, Politics, Science, Skeptics, Terrorism, The Left, The Right
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Also tagged Adam Smith, American Revolution, common law, conservatism, Edmund Burke, French Revolution, Inflation, Modernism, Norman Geras, postmodernism, Samuel Johnson, Scopes Trial, slavery, Tories, torture, US Civil War, Western Civilisation, Whigs, William Jennings Bryan
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