Via the Money Illusion I see that there is a suggestion to make consumption taxes an automatic stabiliser for a given economy. Russ Abbott, who is a computer science professor at Cal State LA, sent me an ingenious plan for having the Fed use fiscal policy to stabilize the economy. It involves sales tax rebates …
Category Archive: Monetary economics
Permanent link to this article: http://www.tvhe.co.nz/2012/01/25/automatic-smoothing-with-vatgst/
Dec
14
2011
Conditional policy
Today’s Fed statement about monetary policy followed the same pattern that we have seen from other central banks, such as the RBA and RBNZ. Essentially, fundamental conditions remain a bit weak, and so there is a reason to keep policy stimulatory – however, this view is strongly conditional on the ECB/Europe not being bat sh*t …
Permanent link to this article: http://www.tvhe.co.nz/2011/12/14/conditional-policy/
Nov
17
2011
A point on NGDP targeting and inflation expectations
I’m increasingly hearing people call for an NGDP target. I’m not really convinced it is superior to inflation/price level targeting to be honest. Let me discuss below.
Permanent link to this article: http://www.tvhe.co.nz/2011/11/17/a-point-on-ngdp-targeting-and-inflation-expectations/
Oct
26
2011
Careful discussing a “dollar policy”
I see there are further calls for NZ to look at its “dollar policy”. I do not believe that an investigation will sensibly suggest we should change much in terms of “direct” policy – and I think it is important to try and understand what is going on here before saying we shoudl control anything. …
Permanent link to this article: http://www.tvhe.co.nz/2011/10/26/careful-discussing-a-dollar-policy/
Oct
24
2011
Give me a real inflation measure
A pet hate of mine is that we use CPI to discuss inflation – without recognising the pitfalls. My solution would be to make a real inflation measure, which is something the dynamic factor model at the RBNZ is trying to do. I discuss this reasoning in more detail in an article for Idealog here.
Permanent link to this article: http://www.tvhe.co.nz/2011/10/24/give-me-a-real-inflation-measure/
Oct
21
2011
Expectations and commitment are monetary policy
I know we hear a lot about what “monetary policy is” in New Zealand. According to our media monetary policy can make our incomes the same as those in Australia, make the price of everything move in our favour, build us new houses, reduce our reliance on foreign everything, increase and decrease house prices, and …
Permanent link to this article: http://www.tvhe.co.nz/2011/10/21/expectations-and-commitment-are-monetary-policy/
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