Category Archives: Uncategorized

One way to implement helicopter money is to have the government finance a tax cut or a government spending increase, with a conventional bond issue, and have the central bank buy the bonds with newly created electronic money. During the … Continue reading →

The plan for unwinding central bank QE, at least as stated by the Bank of England and the Fed, is that asset sales won’t start until the recovery has got to the point where sales won’t have to be reversed. … Continue reading →

A curt summary of my remarks – few of them new to those who read this blog – at this year’s Centre for European Reform conference at Ditchley Park, on the topic of ‘Brexit and the economics of populism’. In … Continue reading →

The Bank of Japan has been tinkering with its monetary policy, and one thing about it struck me as curious. There is now the determination to try to overshoot the inflation target.  The idea is to try to raise the … Continue reading →

Paywalled access to article joint with Richard Barwell, BNP Paribas, here.

John Kay has written the first in a series of posts on monetary policy, and he starts by trashing helicopter money.  I also disagree that HM should be contemplated, at least in any economy save Japan,  but I think he … Continue reading →

In my previous post I identified the vortex caused by responding to perceived grievance  with a policy sop  that is wrong headed and subsequently gives ground for further grievance and another round of misdiagnosis by the electorate. Of course it … Continue reading →

That title, strangely, does mean something. Post-Brexit, post-Trump, post-financial crisis, there’s a desire to respond to the perceived grievances of those who voted to give incumbent governments a kick.  But in so far as these grievances are not genuine, responding … Continue reading →

Following on from my previous post…. Phillip Hammond has suggested a ‘reset’ of fiscal policy might be in order, which could be read as him recognising that monetary policy might not be able to offer an adequate response to the … Continue reading →

People may differ on the effectiveness and desirability of unconventional monetary policy. But most of those in the sensible camp would agree that if we were about to head into recession, the most important aspect of the policy response is … Continue reading →