Evolving views on monetary policy in the thought of Hayek,Friedman, and Buchanan

Attempting to find the technically optimal monetary policy is futile if the Federal Reserve’s independence is undermined by political influences. F. A. Hayek, Milton Friedman, and James Buchanan each sought ways to improve the performance of the Federal Reserve. They each ended up rejecting the possibility that technical refinement or minor reforms might be sufficient. After properly accounting for the concerns of robust political economy, each concluded that a fundamental restructuring of our monetary system was necessary. Friedman turned to binding rules, Buchanan to constitutionalism, and Hayek to competing private currencies. We synthesize their contributions to make a case for applying the concepts of robust political economy to the Federal Reserve through the adoption of professional humility, creative thinking, and an emphasis on the politically possible, not the politically acceptable.     

Comment on “Lessons for Monetary Policy from the Euro-Area Crisis”

This comment discusses and extends the paper: “Lessons for Monetary Policy from the Euro Area Crisis,” by Charles Goodhart. The comment claims the Eurosystem was more sluggish in responding to the crisis than the Federal Reserve due to restrictions originating from its mandate. Yet today’s challenge runs deeper, as the absence of a banking union in the Euro Area has allowed a large fragmentation in financial intermediation. The critical question is: “Given that the Euro Area is not an Optimum Currency Area and a banking union will take a long time to materialize, can the Eurosystem find a way to alleviate the fragmentation in lending rates without compromising its independence?” The comment offers a solution, which would expand the monetary toolbox.     

INSTITUTIONAL PRESERVATION AT THE FEDERAL RESERVE

This paper explains and presents supporting evidence for the hypothesis that institutional preservation is the central motive for Federal Reserve decision makers' behavior. Welfare maximization can, under certain conditions (i.e., via a vote maximization motive or the direct attribution of socially desirable goals), be a part of the preservation hypothesis, but it is inconsistent with substantial parts of Federal Reserve behavior. This paper presents evidence of this inconsistent behavior that the preservation hypothesis can explain. Such evidence includes opposing better coordination with voters'choices, creating an internally authorized fund that makes foreign loans without congressional authorization, opposing better monetary control procedures, organizing lobbying campaigns to defeat legislation to audit the Federal Reserve and make its meetings open to public scrutiny, failing to take minutes after legislation was enacted, and impairing information dispersal about funding for the Watergate burglars. The paper analyzes, in terms of institutional preservation, the results of recent research on the relationship of central banks' independence from short-run political forces and their anti-inflationary monetary policies.     

Has the Fed been a failure?

As the 100th anniversary of the 1913 Federal Reserve Act approaches, we assess whether the nation’s experiment with the Federal Reserve has been a success or a failure. Drawing on a wide range of recent empirical research, we find the following: (1) The Fed’s full history (1914 to present) has been characterized by more rather than fewer symptoms of monetary and macroeconomic instability than the decades leading to the Fed’s establishment. (2) While the Fed’s performance has undoubtedly improved since World War II, even its postwar performance has not clearly surpassed that of its undoubtedly flawed predecessor, the National Banking system, before World War I. (3) Some proposed alternative arrangements might plausibly do better than the Fed as presently constituted. We conclude that the need for a systematic exploration of alternatives to the established monetary system is as pressing today as it was a century ago.     

POLITICS AND THE FEDERAL RESERVE

Evidence presented here supports a two-part hypothesis that (1) the Federal Reserve is a powerful political entity, not independent of politics, and (2) it preserves its political power by carrying out the monetary policy desired by the President of the United States. This evidence includes the historical record from the Truman to Reagan administrations, politicization of Federal Reserve research, and political lobbying by the Federal Reserve. Formerly secret minutes of the regional Federal Reserve Banks' boards of directors meetings provide source material. The conclusion suggests a more efficient method of translating political signals and a rule for more predictable monetary policy.     

Independent but Not Indifferent: Partisan Bias in Monetary Policy at the Fed

Independent central banks are thought to be effective inflation hawks because they are run by technocrats with conservative monetary policy preferences. However, central bankers can only protect their independence by compromising with the elected officials who grant them their independence. Policy, therefore, is likely to be a weighted average of the preferences of the central bank and the government. Consequently, central bankers may be eager to help right‐wing governments stay in power and oppose the election of left‐wing governments. We show evidence from the United States that interest rates (a) decline as elections approach when Republicans control the White House, but rise when Democrats do; and (b) are sensitive to the inflation rate (output gap) when Democrats (Republicans) are in the White House. Thus, the Federal Reserve is a conditional inflation hawk. Since the Fed became operationally independent in 1951, the Republicans have exhibited a decided electoral advantage in presidential politics.     

Effects of the October 2013 U.S. Federal government shutdown on National Park gateway communities: the case of Acadia National Park and Bar Harbor,Maine

The U.S. Federal Government experienced a shutdown that halted much of its spending and services over 16 days in October 2013. Federal government officials noted a wide variety of impacts that the shutdown had on economic activity, including a reduction in the admission fees collected by the National Park Service and losses of visitor spending in ‘gateway communities’ located near national parks and monuments. This article examines the effects of the October 2013 federal government shutdown on Acadia National Park’s gateway community of Bar Harbor, Maine. Regression results show that the 16-day shutdown is associated with a 76% reduction in Acadia visitation in October 2013 and a 13% reduction in tourism-related sales. This suggests that an estimated 17% of the potential visitors impacted by the Acadia closure cancelled their trips to Bar Harbor. This change in visitor behaviour is a reasonably large response to a short-term event such as the government shutdown.     

Language after liftoff: Fed communication away from the zero lower bound

This paper examines the Federal Reserve's communication strategy to see how well it has worked and how it can be improved. It argues that Federal Reserve communication when short-term interest rates are no longer constrained by the zero lower bound should be focused on relaying a data-based reaction function which informs market participants how interest rates will adjust as new information arrives. Instead, the Federal Reserve in recent years has relied more heavily than desired on “time-based” forward guidance, focusing on when interest rates are likely to rise rather than under what circumstances. We argue that, except under unusual circumstances, this is an imprudent strategy, as it mutes the effect of macroeconomic news on interest rates and unnecessarily places restrictions on future Federal Reserve action when new information arrives. We argue that the Federal Reserve can improve communication in the current environment by moving away from time-based forward guidance, clarifying how interest rates are likely to change given new information, and providing more information in the Summary of Economic Projections.     

A model of the federal funds market

Summary This paper develops a stochastic general equilibrium model of the federal funds market that incorporates non-Fisherian effects on interest rates stemming from both supply and demand shocks to reserves. Such a model may reconcile the widespread belief in a liquidity effect of money supply shocks with the difficulty many researchers have had in finding empirical support for such an effect. The model also cautions against interpreting the observed negative correlation between the federal funds rate and innovations to nonborrowed reserves as empirical confirmation of the ability of the Federal Reserve to lower short-term real interest rates.This paper should not be interpreted as reflecting the views of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System or its staff. We gratefully acknowledge lengthy discussions and correspondence with V. V. Chari, Marty Eichenbaum, and especially Larry Christiano, that helped to clarify many issues. We were told many institutional details by Jim Clouse and Josh Feinman, and we received many helpful comments from David Altig, Michael Dotsey, and participants at the conference on Recent Research on the Liquidity Effect of Monetary Policy, 1993, Federal Research Bank of Cleveland, the conference on Recent Macroeconomic Research: Lessons for Policymaking, 1993, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta and the conference on Operating Procedures and the Conduct of Monetary Policy, 1992, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.     

Federal Reserve System Rising: The Expansion of Board Veto Authority on the Eve of the Great Depression

Most scholars agree that restrictive Federal Reserve System (FRS) policies contributed to the depression’s duration and severity. FRS policy mistakes are attributed to faulty ideas, poor leadership, and decentralised institutions. Extant scholarship treats ideas as constraints which systematically led policy-makers astray. This paper instead focuses on the dual roles ideas play in shaping institutions and uniting coalitions behind institutional projects. It traces the rise and fall of New York FRS Governor Benjamin Strong’s ‘great idea’ that the FRS should promote international monetary stability. Declining support for New York’s internationalism enabled a rural Board faction to expand its veto power from 1928 to 1930. In the critical year following the 1929 stock market crash, Board obstruction of New York FRS attempts to lower its discount and bill rates caused its investments to fall faster than the system’s bond portfolio expanded, forcing outstanding system credit to contract. Beyond showing that the Board’s pre-depression rise mattered, the paper speaks to broader debates about how ideas become empowered to shape policies and inform interests.     

On the validation of cost push: A comment

A recent article in this journal examined the effects of ‘cost-push’ disturbances in a model in which government expenditure was fixed in nominal rather than real terms. It was suggested that, under certain circumstances, these nominal government expenditure targets could destabilise the model. In this note we show that, on the contrary, this particular model is always stable, whether or not government expenditure is fixed in nominal or real terms.     

Transaction costs and the use of cash and credit

Summary An overlapping generations model with spatial separation and transaction costs is developed that displays steady state equilibria in which both cash (fiat currency) and trade credit are used in exchange. Equilibria in which trade credit is used are not Pareto optimal. The question of the optimal quantity of money is addressed. Deflation is found to be optimal, contrary to the result for standard overlapping generations environments.This paper is based upon my dissertation, written for the University of Minnesota. I am grateful to Kathryn Combs, Michael Dotsey, Bruce Horning, Anne Villamil and seminar participants at numerous institutions for helpful comments. Most of all, I want to thank my advisor, Neil Wallace, for the attention he gave to my work. The views expressed in this paper are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond or the Federal Reserve System.     

The Practice Boundaries of Advanced Practice Nurses: An Economic and Legal Analysis

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of State regulation that determines the extent of professional independence of advanced practice nurses (APNs). We find that in States where APNs have acquired a substantial amount of professional independence, the earnings of APNs are substantially lower, and those of physicians assistants (PAs) are substantially higher, than in other States. These results are striking since PAs are in direct competition with APNs; the only real operational difference between these groups is that PAs are salaried employees who must work under the supervision of a physician. The implication is that physicians have responded to an increase in professional independence of APNs by hiring fewer APNs and more PAs. The finding that earnings of APNs decline when they attain more professional autonomy vis-à-vis physicians reinforces work by Sass and Nichols on physical therapists.The content is the responsibility of the authors and does not represent official positions of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis or the Federal Reserve SystemJEL classification: I11, I18, J31, J44, L51     

A DEFENSE OF THE FOMC*

We defend the forecasting performance of the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee (FOMC) against the criticism of Christina and David Romer (2008, American Economic Review 98, 230–235) by assuming that the FOMC’s forecasts depict a worst‐case scenario that it uses to design decisions that are robust to misspecification of the staff’s model. We use a simple macro model and a plausible loss function to illustrate how such an interpretation of the FOMC’s forecasts can explain the findings of Romer and Romer, including the pattern of differences between FOMC forecasts and forecasts published by the staff of the Federal Reserve System in the Greenbook.     

An alternative monetary policy target

For most of the period since the mid-1970s, the Federal Reserve has expressed its monetary policy intentions by announcing the target growth rates of three principal monetary aggregates: the simple-sum M1, M2 and M3. However, the sweeping changes and the deregulation in the financial industry have greatly affected the relevance of these traditional monetary aggregates. The unusual behaviour of the simple-sum monetary aggregates has forced the Federal Reserve to stop setting target range for M1. The measuring of monetary aggregates has become a controversial question. This paper constructs the new-benchmark Divisia monetary indexes which reflect ‘moneyness’ more accurately than the old Divisia indexes. I demonstrate that the historical trends of the Divisia monetary indexes are sensitive to the brenchmark rates chosen in constructing these indexes. In addition, I compare the forecasting performance of the new-benchmark Divisia monetary indexes with the simple-sum and the old Divisia monetary indexes in the estimated money demand functions. I find that the new-benchmark Divisia monetary indexes provide the best statis forecasting performance. The result indicate that the new-benchmark Divisia monetary indexes should be considered as alternative measures of money in studying the relationship between money and the economy.     

State-Federal Resource Tax Rivalry: The Queensland Railway and the Federal Export Tax*

This paper presents a stylized account and analysis of the implications of the intergovernmental tax rivalry which arises between the Queensland and Federal governments in their efforts to tax resource rents. In particular, coal is taxed explicitly through the Federal export levy and implicitly through the Queensland railways ‘excess rail freight’. A game-theoretic environment thus arises. It is shown that if each government sets its tax rate optimally in reaction to the other government's tax polity, then less revenue is generated at a higher deadweight cost. The optimal cooperative solution is compared to the non-cooperative equilibrium and the resulting welfare gains are identified.     

Assessing the (de-)anchoring of households’ long-term inflation expectations in the US

Well-anchored inflation expectations play an important role in the achievement of price stability. The (de-)anchoring of long-term inflation expectations in the US has been under debate since the sub-prime crisis. This paper assesses and explains the evolution of the degree of (de-)anchorage of households’ long-term inflation expectations in the US during the period of 1990 to 2019, in a time-varying framework. We find the long-term inflation expectations to be de-anchored during the entire study period. The de-anchorage was greater in the first half of the 1990s. Subsequently, it has declined but has not yet anchored. An increase in inflation perception reduces the degree of de-anchorage in a (persistently) low-inflation perception period, whereas it causes a rise in the degree of de-anchorage when inflation perception is around its long-term average or is persistently high. Further, a rise in economic policy uncertainty also increases the de-anchorage of households’ long-term inflation expectations. This suggests that the Federal Reserve System (Fed) may find it beneficial to pay more attention to households’ inflation perception.     

On the optimality of interest-bearing reserves in economies of overlapping generations

Summary Paying interest on required reserves is considered in an overlapping generations model in which the return to capital dominates the return to fiat money. As Smith (1991) showed, financing interest on reserves benefits the initial old at the expense of future generations. We show that the transfer of wealth associated with interest on reserves can be offset by an accommodating open market purchase, so that the payment of interest on reserves is a Pareto improvement. We also show that paying interest on reserves improves welfare even when financed by distorting taxes on capital.The authors thank Mike Cox, Greg Huffman, Evan Koenig, and Bruce Smith for helpful discussion. Any remaining errors are solely ours. This work originated while Freeman was a Research Associate at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. The views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect those of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas or the Federal Reserve System.     

Is the Fed’s news perception different from the private sector’s?

The recent literature on monetary policy has dedicated considerable attention to modelling agents’ processing of information about the future in real time. This paper contributes to this growing strand by investigating the implied differences in the so-called news shocks estimated from the standard New Keynesian dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model using the real-time data sets from the Survey of Professional Forecasters (SPF) and the Federal Reserve’s Greenbook (GB) forecasts. Alternative specifications with either the SPF or GB forecasts aim to delineate the differences in the private sector’s and the Fed’s expectations of future macroeconomic outcomes and identify the differences in their perception of news shocks. Our results indicate that while the demand news shocks have very similar distributions in the two datasets, the monetary and cost-push news shocks from the models estimated on the GB data tend to be larger than those from the SPF. These findings suggest that the Federal Reserve’s forecasting methods allow for more variation in future outcomes than the SPF’s. These findings mesh well with the extant literature on the superiority of the Fed’s forecasts relative to the private sector’s and provide a structural explanation for the source of this superiority.     

Bank Influence and the Failure of US Monetary Policy during the 1953–54 Recession

This paper presents archival and econometric evidence that challenges the conventional belief that independent central banks are necessary to stabilise economies on non-inflationary growth paths. The evidence suggests that, when the US central bank—the Federal Reserve—became independent of democratic control in March 1951, it became dependent on the large banks. It is shown that excessive banker influence caused the Federal Reserve to miss its first opportunity to stabilise the economy, during the 1953–54 recession.