Predictably, the depths of the present economic crisis, including the remarkable flattening of interest rates since it began, have led to several calls by economists, including Jordi Gali and the Mercatus Institute's David Beckworth, for the Fed and other central banks to ready their money choppers for…
Not long ago, the CMFA staff and I were preparing to officially launch The Menace of Fiscal QE, my book aimed at countering efforts to have the Fed undertake or otherwise fund off-budget government spending programs. Then came the crisis. Of course our plans were dashed. But…
One of the challenging things about my job here at Cato is that it calls for me, not only to make the case for monetary alternatives, but to comment on current Fed policies. Why is that such a challenge? Because, so far as many of my fellow…
The winter 2020 edition of the Cato Journal is now available online! Articles in this issue discuss a range of topics—from the proper size of government, to the relationship between tariffs and monetary policy, to the life and legacy of Frederick Douglass. Below, you'll find summaries of each article, with links to the full-text versions embedded in the titles.
From President Trump lobbing invectives against Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on Twitter to progressives clamoring for the Federal Reserve to use monetary policy to finance social projects, our central bank's independence looks increasingly tenuous. Recently, Chairman Powell called for an internal "strategic review" of how…