11 Sep 2013

How Can We Be Sure Scott Sumner Opposes the Gold Standard?

Market Monetarism, Scott Sumner 3 Comments

Am I the only one who finds this hilarious? Check out the opening lines from a recent Sumner post:

What would Milton Friedman have thought of market monetarism?

I am working on an article with the preceding title. I have some ideas, but am also looking for help on a few points. I’ve come up with 2 arguments suggesting that Friedman would have opposed market monetarism, and 10 arguments suggesting he would have favored it. I need more “against” arguments as I’m obviously biased. This is going to be a “scholarly” paper, and hence there cannot be any bias in my analysis. That’s not allowed in scholarly papers. It’s why there is no lumping of t-stats at around 2.0 in published papers. Oh wait . . .

But seriously, I’d like arguments either way. Also I’d appreciate a quotation of Friedman opposing NGDP targeting. Here are two arguments suggesting Friedman would have opposed MM:

1. He once said he opposed NGDP targeting.

To avoid confusion, let me clarify that I cut off Scott’s post at the funny part. After that it just gets into boring econ stuff.

3 Responses to “How Can We Be Sure Scott Sumner Opposes the Gold Standard?”

  1. Dan says:

    That’s pretty awesome.

  2. Transformer says:

    Maybe he would have support the rest of the market monetarist program just not the NGDP targeting bit……oh, wait

  3. von Pepe says:

    Does Prof. Sumner really have to write this paper?

    #1 seems conclusive to me.

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