Jon Hartley interviews Greg Mankiw on topics including New Keynesian macroeconomics, growth, and economic policy more broadly at his Capitalism and Freedom website (August 20, 2024, video and transcript available). Here are a few of the comments that caught my eye. On big models and small models in studying the macroeconomy: [O]n the issue of…
Interview with Greg Mankiw: New Keynesian Macro, Growth, and Economic Policy
Interview with Greg Mankiw: New Keynesian Macro, Growth, and Economic Policy
04 Sep 2024 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, budget deficits, business cycles, development economics, econometerics, economic growth, economic history, Edward Prescott, fiscal policy, great depression, history of economic thought, labour economics, law and economics, macroeconomics, Milton Friedman, monetarism, monetary economics, politics - USA, Public Choice, Robert E. Lucas, unemployment
Thought and Details on the Fiscal Theory of the Price Level
30 Jul 2024 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, budget deficits, business cycles, economic growth, economic history, history of economic thought, labour economics, macroeconomics, monetarism, monetary economics, unemployment Tags: monetary policy

The Fiscal Theory of the Price Level has been percolating among monetary theorists for over three decades: Eric Leeper being the first to offer a formalization of the idea, with Chris Sims and Michael Woodford soon contributed to its further development. But the underlying idea that the taxation power of the state is essential for […]
Thought and Details on the Fiscal Theory of the Price Level
Monetary Policy and the Great Crash of 1929: A Bursting Bubble or Collapsing Fundamentals?
11 Jun 2024 Leave a comment
in business cycles, economic growth, economic history, great depression, history of economic thought, macroeconomics, monetarism, monetary economics Tags: monetary policy
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?
19 Apr 2024 Leave a comment
in budget deficits, business cycles, economic growth, economic history, fiscal policy, great depression, history of economic thought, labour economics, macroeconomics, monetarism, monetary economics, unemployment
Solow on Market Advantages and Market Failures
31 Dec 2023 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, business cycles, economic growth, economic history, economics of regulation, entrepreneurship, history of economic thought, labour economics, macroeconomics, Milton Friedman, monetarism, monetary economics, unemployment
Robert Solow (1924-2023) died last week. As a starting point for understanding his life and his work on growth theory, the Nobel prize website, since he won the award in 1987, includes an overall description, a biographical essay, and his Nobel lecture. I can also strongly recommend an interview that Steven Levitt carried out with…
Solow on Market Advantages and Market Failures
The Worst Journalism of 2023
29 Dec 2023 Leave a comment
in budget deficits, business cycles, development economics, economic history, fiscal policy, growth disasters, macroeconomics, monetarism, monetary economics Tags: Argentina

Writing about the economic tragedy of Argentina, I’ve explained that one major problem is inflation, thanks to that country’s version of “modern monetary theory.” This is not a trivial problem. Here’s a chart, from a recent report by Reuters, showing how prices have been rising for nearly 10 years and skyrocketing for the past three […]
The Worst Journalism of 2023
Friedman and Schwartz agreed with Anderson, Tollison and Shughart on the public choice origins of the Great Contraction!
28 Dec 2023 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, business cycles, economic history, economics of bureaucracy, great depression, history of economic thought, macroeconomics, Milton Friedman, monetarism, monetary economics, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: monetary policy



Hetzel Withholds Credit from Hawtrey for his Monetary Explanation of the Great Depression
14 Dec 2023 Leave a comment
in business cycles, economic growth, economic history, financial economics, great depression, history of economic thought, labour economics, macroeconomics, Milton Friedman, monetarism, monetary economics, unemployment Tags: monetary policy
In my previous post, I explained how the real-bills doctrine originally espoused by Adam Smith was later misunderstood and misapplied as a policy guide for central banking, not, as Smith understood it, as a guide for individual fractional-reserve banks. In his recent book on the history of the Federal Reserve, Robert Hetzel recounts how the […]
Hetzel Withholds Credit from Hawtrey for his Monetary Explanation of the Great Depression
Lessons from Fighting 100 Inflations Since the 1970s
12 Dec 2023 Leave a comment
in budget deficits, business cycles, development economics, economic growth, economic history, fiscal policy, growth disasters, history of economic thought, inflation targeting, macroeconomics, monetarism, monetary economics, unemployment Tags: monetary policy

Inflation rates have come down since their peak in mid-2022. Does the Federal Reserve need to continue its inflation-fighting ways, keeping interest rates high? Anil Ari, Carlos Mulas-Granados, Victor Mylonas, Lev Ratnovski, and WeiZhao of the IMF look to historical and international experience in “One Hundred Inflation Shocks: Seven Stylized Facts” (September 2023, WP/23/190). As…
Lessons from Fighting 100 Inflations Since the 1970s
Review of “Milton Friedman: The Last Conservative” by Jennifer Burns
29 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
in budget deficits, business cycles, economic growth, fiscal policy, global financial crisis (GFC), great depression, great recession, history of economic thought, macroeconomics, Milton Friedman, monetarism, monetary economics
Milton Friedman: The Last Conservative by Jennifer Burns 592 pages Farrar, Straus and Giroux Published: Nov 2023 Released two weeks ago, Jennifer Burns’s “Milton Friedman: The Last Conservative” is the most significant biography of Friedman ever published. Burns is an associate professor of history at Stanford and a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. She […]
Review of “Milton Friedman: The Last Conservative” by Jennifer Burns
My Conversation with the excellent Jennifer Burns
17 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
in Austrian economics, business cycles, economics of education, Euro crisis, F.A. Hayek, global financial crisis (GFC), great depression, great recession, history of economic thought, macroeconomics, Milton Friedman, monetarism, monetary economics
Here is the audio, video, and transcript. Here is the episode description: Jennifer Burns is a professor history at Stanford who works at the intersection of intellectual, political, and cultural history. She’s written two biographies Tyler highly recommends: her 2009 book, Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right and her latest, Milton Friedman: The […]
My Conversation with the excellent Jennifer Burns
Milton Friedman: The Last Conservative | Hoover Institution
15 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, budget deficits, business cycles, economic growth, economic history, fiscal policy, global financial crisis (GFC), great depression, great recession, history of economic thought, inflation targeting, labour economics, macroeconomics, Milton Friedman, monetarism, monetary economics, unemployment Tags: monetary policy
Filling in the Gaps: Next Steps for the Fiscal Theory of the Price Level
15 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, budget deficits, business cycles, econometerics, economic history, financial economics, fiscal policy, great depression, great recession, history of economic thought, inflation targeting, macroeconomics, monetarism, monetary economics Tags: monetary policy
Jennifer Burns on Milton Friedman 11/13/23
14 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, Austrian economics, business cycles, comparative institutional analysis, econometerics, economic history, economics of education, economics of regulation, fiscal policy, great depression, history of economic thought, labour economics, liberalism, libertarianism, macroeconomics, Milton Friedman, monetarism, monetary economics Tags: monetary policy
Book Presentation with John Cochrane: “The Fiscal Theory of the Price Le…
09 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
in budget deficits, business cycles, econometerics, economic growth, economic history, Euro crisis, fiscal policy, global financial crisis (GFC), great depression, great recession, history of economic thought, inflation targeting, macroeconomics, Milton Friedman, monetarism, monetary economics, public economics Tags: monetary policy
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