Category Archives: Uncategorized

Brad Delong and Isabella Kaminska are against raising the inflation target as a response to secular stagnation.  To recap.  Larry Summers argued that currently the natural real rate is very low and may remain so for quite some time ahead.  … Continue reading →

Paul Krugman has been accused recently of being inconsistent with his own textbook on the issue of whether higher benefits for the unemployed raise or lower unemployment.  His textbook explained the consensus view that such benefits can increase ‘frictional’ unemployment – or the … Continue reading →

Roger Farmer tweeted this quote from a Martin Wolf article today:  ‘in essence, today’s financial system is the same as before’.  Without checking, I am guessing that ‘before’ means before the latest crisis.  But perhaps ‘before’ might not be so … Continue reading →

Another thought on the Coalition’s attempt to manage expectations about fiscal policy. My last post on the Coalition’s fiscal policy, in a nutshell, said that although the eventual path of the deficit, ex post, turned out not too far wrong, … Continue reading →

For some Friday night fun, and, caution, after a day grinding through DSGE models of credit frictions, preparing for an MSc Masters module at Bristol later this year, I thought I would comment on Noah Smith’s typically entertaining macro-smackdown. For … Continue reading →

George Osborne and fellow Conservatives are attempting – seemingly with success – to run the argument that the fact that the economy is now growing quickly proves that their austerity policy was the right one.  The message gets pumped out … Continue reading →

A while ago I posted this, explaining how I thought that OMTs were an almighty – if so far successful – bluff.  The reasoning being that the promise is to buy whatever quantity it takes to eliminate a gap between … Continue reading →