Market Monetarism

Archive for Market Monetarism

Yet More Sumner Sleight-of-Hand

Here’s a good one. Recently John Quiggin updated a post in response to objections from Market Monetarists, because he had said (initially) that nominal interest rates were a good indicator of the looseness or tightness of monetary policy. The Market Monetarists said that the standard view was that real interest rates were a better indicator, […]

Structural versus Demand-Side Theories of Unemployment

Paul Krugman has a new post–which Scott Sumner calls “very good”–in which he explains why the structural explanations of the recession don’t fit the facts. In contrast (you will not be surprised to hear), Krugman’s own demand-side theory comes out with flying colors. Here’s Krugman: [O]ne strong indicator that the problem isn’t structural is that […]

Questioning the Government’s GDP Numbers

Scott Sumner responded to my post on him vs. Schiff by saying he hoped I was joking. No, I’m not. I actually think it’s weird that so many right-wingers endorse Scott’s argument. (To remind you, Scott argues that if price inflation were a lot higher than the government’s numbers, that would mean the economy is […]

Is It Better to Malinvest During a Recession?

Evan Soltas (HT2 Scott Sumner) writes a more balanced view (compared to Matt Yglesias, who called Summers a communist) on Larry Summers allegedly problematic concern over low interest rates leading to malinvestments. To refresh your memory, here is what Summers said back in 2012, that is now causing a lot of people to flip out […]

Yellen for Fed Chief! (Matt O’Brien Is Easy to Impress.)

Check out Matt O’Brien’s case for Janet Yellen over Larry Summers as the next Fed chief (HT2 Scott Sumner): After serving as a Fed governor from 1994 to 1997, as president of the San Francisco Fed from 2004 to 2010, and as Fed Vice-Chair for the past three years, Yellen has emerged as one of […]

With Friends Like Me, Sumner Doesn’t Need Enemies

Noah Smith launched a completely unfair attack on Scott Sumner when he wrote: …monetarists like Scott Sumner often spend a lot of time “punching hippies” on every issue other than monetary policy, trying to avoid being tarred as hippies themselves for their lack of fear of inflation. (Note to Sumner: This strategem has quite noticeably […]

Questions for Keynesians

1) When it comes to the “zero lower bound,” what’s the relevant maturity? Scott Sumner and Tyler Cowen are celebrating the end of the liquidity trap, but their argument makes no sense to me: Short-term Treasury yields are still basically zero, and long-term yields were never near zero. But then, if the Keynesian answer is […]

It’s Easy to Be Right When You Don’t Admit You Were Wrong

I’m going to be laying into my two favorite bloggers–Paul Krugman and Scott Sumner–for their slippery handling of the recent rise in Treasury yields. As I’ve said several times on this blog, I think Krugman and Scott do this a lot (Krugman is more annoying about it); it’s just that this is a particularly obvious […]