In addition to testifying before Congress, Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke today tried to explain the Fed’s plans and options directly to the public through an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. Here I provide some background on what Bernanke’s talking about in terms of an “exit strategy” for the Fed, and offer some thoughts on his remarks.
Category Archives: inflation
Links for 2009-07-17
Some quick remarks about the evidence for economic recovery, central bank independence, and Goldman Sachs.
Concerns about the Fed’s New Balance Sheet
That’s the title of a chapter I contributed to a new book edited by John Ciorciari and John Taylor entitled The Road Ahead for the Fed. The book grew out of a conference held at Stanford University in March.
Guest Contribution: Index Funds and Commodity Prices… Here We Go Again
By Scott Irwin
Econbrowser is pleased to host another contribution from Scott Irwin, who holds the Laurence J. Norton Chair of Agricultural Marketing at the University of Illinois, and today offers some insights from his research on the current debate concerning commodity speculation.
Do you see what I see?
I’m still looking for, and still not seeing, the economic recovery that everybody is talking about.
Supply, demand, and the price of oil
Do recently rising oil prices signal a resurgence of economic growth?
In Search of … Hyperinflationary Expectations
Inflation and relative prices
There are persuasive reasons why we’d be better off today with an inflation rate higher than what we’ve seen over the last six months. But while a uniform expansion that raised all wages and prices by the same amount would be helpful, what the Fed could actually achieve in the present situation may be something less desirable.
The Fed’s new balance sheet
My previous post reviewed the profound changes in the balance sheet of the U.S. Federal Reserve over the last 18 months. Here I comment on some of the concerns that the new Fed balance sheet raises for the conduct of monetary policy.
Money creation and the Fed
A lot of people have seen this picture of the recent behavior of the monetary base and wondered what it means.