It occurs to me that recent discussions of the Fed's new average inflation targeting plan gloss over a subtle distinction between two different kinds of Average Inflation Targeting (AIT). Hence this post explaining the difference, and why I think it matters. The difference between the two sorts…
This essay, the first of a series on government efforts to bank the "unbanked," reviews the history of postal banking and its deleterious role in the Great Depression. Subsequent posts will discuss contemporary proposals for government involvement in retail banking, such as through the U.S. Postal Service…
The Fall 2020 issue of the Cato Journal covers several key topics in monetary policy: (1) the risk to the Federal Reserve's independence and credibility as it drifts into fiscal policy; (2) the effectiveness of negative interest rates as a tool of monetary policy; (3) the impact…
Relax: the Fed isn't about to catch fire or melt. This isn't about that sort of warming. It's about a different, more benign sort of Fed warming that my pals at the Mercatus Center claim to have discerned. Still, I don't believe them. Call me a Fed…
On August 27, the FOMC announced a new "Statement on Longer-Run Goals and Monetary Policy Strategy," in which it replaced its earlier Taylor Rule strategy for controlling inflation with what might be called a "Semi-Wicksell Rule." Fed Chair Jerome Powell elaborated on the statement in a speech…