By Timothy Cogley. He was then at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco (1999). He is now at New York University. “In recent years, a number of economists have expressed concern that the stock market is overvalued. Some have compared the situation with the 1920s, warning that the market may be headed for a…
Monetary Policy and the Great Crash of 1929: A Bursting Bubble or Collapsing Fundamentals?
Monetary Policy and the Great Crash of 1929: A Bursting Bubble or Collapsing Fundamentals?
11 Jun 2025 Leave a comment
in business cycles, economic history, great depression, macroeconomics, monetary economics Tags: monetary policy
*Crisis Cycle*
02 Jun 2025 Leave a comment
in budget deficits, business cycles, currency unions, Euro crisis, fiscal policy, global financial crisis (GFC), great recession, history of economic thought, international economic law, international economics, macroeconomics, monetarism, monetary economics, Public Choice Tags: European Union
That is the new book by John H. Cochrane, Luis Garicano, and Klaus Masuch, and the subtitle is Challenges, Evolution, and Future of the Euro. Excerpt: Our main theme is not actions taken in crises, but that member states and EU institutions did not clean up between crises. They did not reestablish a sustainable framework […]
*Crisis Cycle*
MPC members speaking
31 May 2025 Leave a comment
in budget deficits, business cycles, economic growth, economics of bureaucracy, macroeconomics, monetary economics, politics - New Zealand, Public Choice Tags: monetary policy
In both The Post and the Herald this morning there are reports of interviews with executive members of the Reserve Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee: the Bank’s chief economist Paul Conway in The Post and his boss, and the deputy chief executive responsible for monetary policy and macroeconomics, Karen Silk in the Herald. In a high-performing […]
MPC members speaking
May Monetary Policy Statement
30 May 2025 Leave a comment
in budget deficits, business cycles, economic growth, fiscal policy, inflation targeting, labour economics, macroeconomics, monetary economics, politics - New Zealand, public economics, unemployment Tags: monetary policy
Michael Reddell writes – Procrastinating this morning, I asked Grok to write a post in my style on yesterday’s Monetary Policy Statement. Suffice to say, I think I’ll stick to thinking and writing for myself for the time being. Among the many oddities of Grok’s product was the conviction that Adrian Orr was still Governor. Mercifully […]
May Monetary Policy Statement
Some more post-Budget thoughts
27 May 2025 Leave a comment
in budget deficits, business cycles, economic growth, fiscal policy, macroeconomics, politics - New Zealand, Public Choice, public economics Tags: taxation and investment
On two separate themes; aggregate fiscal policy, and the Investment Boost initiative. Aggregate fiscal policy Over the weekend for some reason I was prompted to look up the Budget Responsibility Rules that Labour and the Greens committed to in early 2017 (my commentary on them here). At the time, the intention seemed to be to […]
Some more post-Budget thoughts
Fiscal starting points
19 May 2025 Leave a comment
in budget deficits, business cycles, economic growth, fiscal policy, macroeconomics, politics - New Zealand, Public Choice Tags: economics of pandemics
Not that long ago, New Zealand’s fiscal balances looked pretty good by advanced country standards. Sure, the fiscal pressures from longer life expectancies were beginning to build – as they were in most of the advanced world – but in absolute and relative terms New Zealand still looked in pretty good shape. Just a few […]
Fiscal starting points
Interview with Robert Barro: Empirical Macroeconomics
24 Apr 2025 1 Comment
in budget deficits, business cycles, econometerics, economic history, fiscal policy, macroeconomics
Jon Hartley serves as interlocutor in “Revisiting Empirical Macroeconomics with Robert Barro” (Hoover Institution, Capitalism and Freedom Podcast, March 25, 2025, audio and transcript available). Here are a few of the comments from Barro that especially caught my eye. One basic question in economics is about “the multiplier”–that is, how much will an increase in…
Interview with Robert Barro: Empirical Macroeconomics
When Genius Failed
10 Apr 2025 1 Comment
in applied price theory, business cycles, economic growth, economics of information, economics of regulation, entrepreneurship, financial economics, global financial crisis (GFC), history of economic thought, industrial organisation, macroeconomics, politics - USA
Myron Scholes was on top of the world in 1997, having won the Nobel Prize in economics that year for his work in financial economics, work that he had applied in the real world in a wildly successful hedge fund, Long Term Capital Management. But just one year later, LTCM was saved from collapse only […]
When Genius Failed
Not much parliamentary scrutiny
01 Apr 2025 Leave a comment
in business cycles, econometerics, economic history, economics of bureaucracy, inflation targeting, labour economics, labour supply, macroeconomics, monetary economics, politics - New Zealand, Public Choice, unemployment Tags: economics of pandemics, monetary policy
This was the post I was planning to write this morning to mark Orr’s final day. That said, if the underlying events – deliberate attempts to mislead Parliament – were Orr’s doing, the post is more about the apparent uselessness of Parliament (specifically the Finance and Expenditure Committee) in holding him and the rest of […]
Not much parliamentary scrutiny
My Former Economics MPhil and DPhil Class-Mate for many hard years, Mark Carney, becomes PM of Canada.
10 Mar 2025 Leave a comment
in business cycles, economic history, economics of bureaucracy, economics of education, history of economic thought, human capital, inflation targeting, labour economics, labour supply, macroeconomics, monetary economics, occupational choice, politics - New Zealand, Public Choice Tags: Canada, monetary policy
Congratulations Mark Carney. When I went to the UK to study economics, we started off doing a degree called Master of Philosophy in…
My Former Economics MPhil and DPhil Class-Mate for many hard years, Mark Carney, becomes PM of Canada.
Bernanke on inflation targeting
09 Mar 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, budget deficits, business cycles, economic growth, economic history, financial economics, fiscal policy, history of economic thought, inflation targeting, labour economics, macroeconomics, monetary economics, politics - New Zealand, unemployment Tags: monetary policy
Former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors (and FOMC), Ben Bernanke, was yesterday the first of two keynote speakers at the Reserve Bank’s conference to mark 35 years of inflation targeting, which first became a formalised thing here in New Zealand. He indicated that he’d be speaking about inflation targeting in general and […]
Bernanke on inflation targeting
Adrian Orr resigns
05 Mar 2025 Leave a comment
in business cycles, economic history, economics of bureaucracy, fiscal policy, inflation targeting, labour economics, macroeconomics, monetary economics, politics - New Zealand, Public Choice, unemployment Tags: economics of pandemics, monetary policy
Adrian Orr has resigned as Reserve Bank Governor. I normally try to highlight the good as well as the bad when someone resigns, but I have to admit in this case I struggle. I welcomed his appointment in 2017. I noted the currency rose on his appointment and that he had a very good legacy […]
Adrian Orr resigns
The cost of Reserve Bank regulation
02 Mar 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, business cycles, economics of bureaucracy, economics of natural disasters, economics of regulation, inflation targeting, macroeconomics, monetary economics, politics - New Zealand, Public Choice Tags: monetary policy
Roger Partridge writes: A new submission to the Committee from banking experts Andrew Body and Simon Jensen provides fresh evidence of these costs. Their analysis shows the Reserve Bank’s capital rules add between 0.25 and 0.375 percentage points to mortgage rates compared with Australia. For a million-dollar mortgage, that means between $2,500 and $3,750 in […]
The cost of Reserve Bank regulation
Forty years of floating
01 Mar 2025 Leave a comment
in budget deficits, business cycles, economic growth, economic history, Euro crisis, global financial crisis (GFC), great recession, history of economic thought, inflation targeting, macroeconomics, monetary economics Tags: floating exchange rates
Last year there was an interesting new book out, made up of 29 collected short papers by (more or less) prominent economists given at a 2023 conference to mark Floating Exchange Rates at Fifty. The fifty years related to the transition back to generalised floating of the major developed world currencies in 1973 (think USD, […]
Forty years of floating
Ireland: Good Corporate Tax Policy vs. Bad Government Spending Policy
11 Feb 2025 Leave a comment
in budget deficits, business cycles, economic growth, economic history, Euro crisis, fiscal policy, global financial crisis (GFC), great recession, labour economics, labour supply, law and economics, macroeconomics, monetary economics, public economics Tags: Ireland, taxation and investment
I’m a big fan of Ireland’s low corporate tax rate for three reasons. First, it shows that good tax policy generates positive economic outcomes as per-capita GDP in Ireland has grown by record amounts. Second, it shows that lower tax rates can in some cases lead to more revenue. Sort of a turbo-charged version of […]
Ireland: Good Corporate Tax Policy vs. Bad Government Spending Policy
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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