Category: Political Science
Why aren’t we using monetary policy to stimulate aggregate demand?
My NYT column today is about why we can't move to a three percent inflation target (which I favor, at least for some number of years) and how we might make the leap. Excerpt:
…if the Fed announces a commitment to a higher inflation target but fails to establish its credibility, it will have shown impotence. It would be a long time before the Fed was trusted again, and the Fed might even lose its (partial) political independence. All of a sudden, the Fed would end up “owning” the recession.
Part of the credibility problem stems from the political environment, especially in Congress. Imagine the day after the announcement of a plan for 3 percent inflation. Older people, creditors and workers on fixed incomes – all connected to powerful lobbies – would start to complain. Republicans would wonder whether they had found a new issue on which to campaign, namely, opposition to inflation. And Democrats would worry about what position to take. Presidents of some regional Fed banks would probably oppose the policy publicly.
…The Fed lost some of its political independence during the financial crisis. It undertook major rescue operations in conjunction with the Treasury, and these bailouts proved extremely unpopular. Congress has taken a closer look at Fed operating procedures and will engage in a one-time audit of the Fed’s emergency lending. When it comes to inflation, the Fed cannot easily turn to Congress and simply ask to be trusted.
This is the sad side story of our financial crisis: especially when it comes to financial matters, a great deal of trust has been lost. There is the prospect of a free lunch right before us, yet it is unclear that we will be able to grab it.
…In failing to push harder for monetary expansion, is Mr. Bernanke a wise and prudent guardian of the limited discretionary powers of the Fed? Or is he acting like a too-hesitant bureaucrat, afraid to fail and take the blame when he should be gunning for success?
A few points:
1. For reasons of space, I could not note that the so-called "robust Reagan recovery" had price inflation of over four percent a year. Many conservatives shy away from recognizing this.
2. Three percent inflation also would help the currently impossible state of the real estate market, by lowering the real value of debts.
3. I do not mean to discriminate against Scott Sumner's nominal gdp idea, but it is easier to explain an inflation rate target to a public audience. Here is my earlier column on Scott.
4. Maybe we are in a new political economy equilibrium where each government agency is given "one shot" at a problem. Treasury had its one shot with the stimulus plan. The Fed had its exotic monetary policy operations and deal-making during the crisis. Maybe in bad times voters aren't happy no matter what, and no one is allowed to try twice. We have not yet thought through the political economy of this scenario.
5. If the Fed can't make the commitment today, when did it go wrong? Perhaps at the peak of the crisis, when it was operating with a high degree of discretion, and various radical actions were viewed as justified, it should have announced that, to complete recovery, the three percent price inflation commitment would commence after the dust had settled. That would have required Magnus Carlsen-like levels of foresight, however. If nothing else, Bernanke may not have realized that some version of #4 was operating.
6. Contra Mark Thoma, I am not so worried about time consistency problems, provided that Congress supports the Fed. As long as the economy is weak, it's in the Fed's interest to keep up the three percent inflation. If people know that in better times we will eventually settle back to two percent inflation, I don't think this undercuts the whole idea.
7. It remains instructive to read Bernanke's 1999 Japan piece, for instance:
BOJ officials have strongly resisted the suggestion of installing an explicit inflation target. Their often-stated concern is that announcing a target that they are not sure they know how to achieve will endanger the Bank’s credibility; and they have expressed skepticism that simple announcements can have any effects on expectations. On the issue of announcement effects, theory and practice suggest that “cheap talk” can in fact sometimes affect expectations, particularly when there is no conflict between what a “player” announces and that player’s incentives. The effect of the announcement of a sustained zero-interest-rate policy on the term structure in Japan is itself a perfect example of the potential power of announcement effects.
With respect to the issue of inflation targets and BOJ credibility, I do not see how credibility can be harmed by straightforward and honest dialogue of policymakers with the public.
Maybe I'm too Straussian or too Freudian here, but I read him as trying to promote the commitment, without being totally sure it is possible; note the "distancing" language at the critical points of the argument. I believe Bernanke wrote this next part before he completely understood the incentives of bureaucracies to conserve information:
But if BOJ officials feel that, for technical reasons, when and whether they will attain the announced target is uncertain, they could explain those points to the public as well. Better that the public knows that the BOJ is doing all it can to reflate the economy, and that it understands why the Bank is taking the actions it does. The alternative is that the private sector be left to its doubts about the willingness or competence of the BOJ to help the macroeconomic situation.
The markets speak
I read so much blogospheric debate on the future of the Republican Party. As for the 2012 Republican nominee, at Intrade.com, Romney is still leading the pack in the 31 range, and Palin remains in the 17-18 range. John Thune is very much underdiscussed, given that his chance of winning the nomination seems to be about as large as Palin's.
As Robin Hanson would say, politics isn't about policy. Of course if you think these numbers are wrong, go and improve them.
Scary sentences
It seems the Obama administration is looking for any possible argument to justify its policy of assassinating U.S. citizens without legal restraint. But that's not always easy to manage:
“The more forcefully the administration urges a court to stay out because this is warfare, the more it puts itself in the uncomfortable position of arguing we’re at war even in Yemen,”
The administration doesn't want any possibility of judicial review:
…they are seeking to have the lawsuit dismissed without discussing its merits. For example, officials say, the brief is virtually certain to argue that Mr. Awlaki’s father has no legal standing to file a lawsuit on behalf of his son.
Is the administration trying to figure out the law, and then follow it, or to simply push through whatever it wants to do?
*The Globalization Paradox*
The author is Dani Rodrik and the subtitle is Democracy and the Future of the World Economy and it is due out early next year.
It is a very good introduction to the Rodrik world view. If you already know the Rodrik worldview, I am not sure it offers anything new. Still, it is worth reading through the Rodrik worldview more than once. I prefer the Rodrik "every country is different" tack to the "globalization, nation-state, democracy — choose two" emphasis (and here), and this book slants in that direction, though it has both.
When it comes to the "choose two" approach, I wonder at what margin must we choose — doesn't Sweden have all three today? Doesn't politics involve a lot of juggling balls in the air anyway? A country with a high rate of productivity growth can manage all sorts of tensions and a country without such growth cannot; I would sooner start the analysis with that distinction.
What is the most likely source of doomsday in 2012?
Alek has a request:
1) While I'm far from a doomsayer, I'm wondering what is the best way to bet in favor of the world ending in 2012? Betting against is pretty obvious.
I am taking this to ask what is the most likely cause of the destruction of all civilization, circa 2012, and not how to collect on the bet, in which case he should read Pascal. (If the 2012 end of the world won't be a total surprise, any leveraged short position should do, but spend the money quickly!)
Here are some hypotheses, but my answer is: destruction of the earth by space aliens.
Here are previous MR posts on The Fermi Paradox. Rampaging space aliens would explain why we don't see more civilizations out there, plus predatory ways imply that contact is short-lived, thereby making our current lack of contact more likely in the Bayesian sense.
We could be living in some kind of "branching/splitting" theory where the highest number of branches come right before everything ends and for Bayesian reasons we expect to be right up against that final point. Still, why should we think that maximum branching/splitting is coming in 2012? After a Lakers threepeat, are there no more possible worlds to create?
The overwhelming probability from a nuclear exchange, at least circa 2012, is that it would remain limited, albeit highly destructive. A pandemic is unlikely to kill more than a billion people. A very large asteroid or a super-volcano explosion can be considered other leading contenders for world-enders.
A few nights ago Natasha and I saw The Day the Earth Stood Still, 1951 version. It's more a tract on foreign policy than science fiction and Klaatu of course is a stand in for the United States. I hadn't seen it in over twenty years and I'm astonished how well the movie captures and presages today's current mix of paranoia and utter unpreparedness, vis-a-vis "aliens." It works poorly when Klaatu dons the rhetoric and tactics of the United States in galactic affairs, combined with equally clumsy implied threats, backed by no moral authority but superior hardware. It's one of the scariest, and best, movies to watch in 2010, with a superb Bernard Herrmann soundtrack and it also has good shots of WDC in 1951. I won't give away the ending but a careful listen shows it's as pessimistic about the aliens as anything. Supposedly the movie deeply influenced Ronald Reagan and brought him to the arms control table.
*Pictures of the Socialistic Future*
In his preface, Bryan Caplan writes:
Yet almost no one questioned the socialists' idealism. By 1961, however, the descendents of the radical wing of the Social Democratic Party had built the Berlin Wall — and were shooting anyone who tried to flee their "Workers' Paradise."…Who could have foreseen such a mythic transformation?
Eugene Richter, that's who, in 1893. There is now a reissue of Richter's Pictures of the Socialistic Future. There is an interview with Bryan Caplan about the book here. Here is the book on-line and free.
The rule of law, or the rule of men (women)?
The Obama administration on Thursday told health insurers that it will track those who enact "unjustified" rate increases linked to the health overhaul and may block those companies from a new marketplace for insurance coverage.
Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of Health and Human Services, issued the warning in a letter to Karen Ignagni, the insurance industry's top lobbyist.
Ms. Sebelius said some insurers were notifying enrollees that their insurance premiums will increase next year as a result of the law's new benefits.
…"There will be zero tolerance for this type of misinformation and unjustified rate increases," Ms. Sebelius wrote. "We will not stand idly by as insurers blame their premium hikes and increased profits on the requirement that they provide consumers with basic protections."
Nowhere is it stated that these rate hikes are against the law (even if you think they should be), nor can this "misinformation" be against the law. Here is further information, including a copy of the letter, which is worse than I had been expecting.
The leaks say it’s Austan Goolsbee to the CEA
Here is the link, hat tip goes to Matt Yglesias on Twitter.
Very good sentences
“I’m all for reducing the number of public-sector employees,” an I.M.F. investigator had said to me. “But how do you do that if you don’t know how many there are to start with?”
That is from the new Michael Lewis article on Greece, entertaining throughout.
Fiscal stimulus coming to Haiti
Experts said the presidential and legislative elections could very well be the economic stimulus quake-ravaged Haitians have been awaiting since the devastating Jan. 12 earthquake left an estimated 300,000 dead, and wiped-out jobs. The campaigns are expected to hire tens of thousands of Haitians.
“It's like a cash transfer to the population, a sort of cash-for-work program,'' said Leslie Voltaire, a former government minister who plans to hire 10,000 Election Day monitors and a helicopter to get around Haiti's mountainous terrain.
The full story is here. And was the last election a model of Downsian competition? Maybe not:
In the 2006 presidential race, which saw Haitian President René Préval beat out 34 other candidates, experts speculated that a candidate needed between $3 million and $6 million to mount a strong challenge.
It is now also believed that the country can no longer afford to have senatorial elections every two years.
What stance will (should) Republicans take on payroll tax cuts?
Let's say you are a Republican policymaker and you already contradict yourself by a) "we can afford to extend the Bush tax cuts" and b) "we can't afford the current version of Social Security" not to mention c) "tax cuts for business are good." Do you still favor both a) and c)? And what if you have to pile on d) "Everything Obama proposes is bad" and yet c) leads you to e) "we should defund the very system which we can no longer afford"? What comes out at the end? I am curious.
Sentences to ponder
Campaigns are built to fool us into thinking that we're voting for individuals. We learn about the candidate's family, her job, her background — even her dog. But we're primarily voting for parties. The parties have just learned we're more likely to vote for them if they disguise themselves as individuals. And American politics would work better if we understood that.
That's from Ezra Klein.
Sentences to ponder
Chilean officials have not yet informed the miners of the months they will need to endure before a rescue shaft can be drilled and a cage lowered to pull them to the surface.
The story is here. At lunch today, one topic was how the Chilean miner experience, when it is over, might revise our understanding of social science. A related question was to estimate the probability that there will be a killing before the time underground is over. How much would that chance go up if one woman were in the group? An equal number of women?
Is it unethical for us to "watch" them, talk about them, or speculate about them? If doctors tell terminally ill patients the nature of their condition, why are the Chilean authorities waiting to tell the men how long they will have to wait for rescue?
How do they "stall them" when the miners ask when are they getting out?
Addendum: Apparently the miners were just told how long it is likely to be.
What do I think of diplomacy?
Diogo, a loyal MR reader, asks:
How do you see diplomacy as a profession? If you could be nominated US Ambassador to a country, which country would you choose? What good novels are there about diplomacy and diplomats?
I see diplomacy as a stressful and unrewarding profession. A good diplomat has the responsibility of deflecting a lot of the blame onto himself, and continually crediting others, while working hard not to like his contacts too much. And how does he or she stay so loyal to the home country when so many ill-informed or unwise instructions are coming through the pipeline? Most of all, a good diplomat requires some kind of clout in the home country and must maintain or manufacture that from abroad. The entire time on mission the diplomat is eating up his capital and power base, and toward what constructive end? So someone else can take his place? And what kind of jobs can you hope to advance into?
Diplomats are in some ways like university presidents: little hope for job advancement, serving many constituencies, and having little ability to control events. Plus they are underpaid relative to human capital. They must speak carefully. They must learn how to wield power in the subtlest ways possible.
Who was it that said?: " Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice Doggie" until you can find a stick"
Presumably diplomats either enjoy serving their country or they enjoy the ego rents of being a diplomat or both. It is a false feeling of power, borrowed power from one's country of origin rather than from one's personal achievements. For the spouse the required phoniness is even worse.
For all those reasons, and more, I would not wish to be a diplomat. I also might prefer to be a diplomat to a country I did not like, rather than to a country I did like.
As for novels about diplomats, The Constant Gardener comes to mind. The Diplomat's Wife is popular, though I have never read it. I read the Ender trilogy as about diplomacy as well. (Is there more from science fiction? It seems like a good plot device to bring people into contact with alien cultures.) Carlos Fuentes was himself a diplomat, as were Octavio Paz, Lawrence Durrell, Ivo Andriæ, Pablo Neruda, and Giorgos Seferis. That's a lot of writer-diplomats and you can add John Kenneth Galbraith (ambassador to India) to the list. Galbraith was the guy who said:
"There are few ironclad rules of diplomacy but to one there is no exception. When an official reports that talks were useful, it can safely be concluded that nothing was accomplished."
David Brooks on Larry Summers
To use a fancy word, there’s a metacognition deficit. Very few in public life habitually step back and think about the weakness in their own thinking and what they should do to compensate. A few people I interview do this regularly (in fact, Larry Summers is one). But it is rare. The rigors of combat discourage it.
Of the problems that afflict the country, this is the underlying one.
The full piece is here.