Fed Chair Ben Bernanke’s observations on monetary policy and the housing bubble have received a lot of attention. Like many other commentators (e.g., Arnold Kling, Paul Krugman, and Free Exchange), I agree with Bernanke’s conclusions, but only up to a point.
Author Archives: James_Hamilton
Inflation in China
Why hasn’t inflation caught up with a monetary-induced boom in China?
Term deposit facility
On Monday the Federal Reserve proposed a new term deposit facility that would allow the Fed to borrow directly from private institutions. Here I offer some thoughts on how this fits into the Fed’s long-term plans and what its implications for the rest of us might be.
Lost decade for stocks
Why were the aughts so nasty for stocks?
Podcast on the federal debt
EconTalk hosts a podcast of a conversation I had with
George Mason Professor Russ Roberts on deficits and the debt. At the end we also get to a discussion of oil markets. You can participate in the discussion with your own comments either here or over at EconTalk.
What went wrong and how can we fix it?
That’s the title of an article I wrote for the UCSD Economics Department’s Economics in Action, which I reproduce below.
Links for 2009-12-16
- NY Fed economist Erkko Etula finds that he can predict oil prices using the volume of broker-dealer financial assets.
- Washington University Professor James Morley and separately Kansas City Fed economist Todd Clark haven’t given up on the Great Moderation.
- My colleague Eli Berman discusses his book Radical, Religious, and Violent: The New Economics of Terrorism
- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac may seek an increase to their $400 billion federal lifeline before the end of the year.
- Billy Hallowell puts together a blog carnival on Facing Up to the Nation’s Finances.
- Berkeley Professor Petr HoYava proposes a new theory of gravity.
Should the Fed be the nation’s bubble fighter?
That’s a question recently taken up by
the Wall Street Journal. Here are my thoughts.
College football playoffs
Commodity prices and the Fed
I’ve been discussing possible explanations for the recent tendency of the dollar prices of commodities to move together. On Friday we received a very useful data point for distinguishing between the different hypotheses.