Macro Musings Podcast: Ramesh Ponnuru

My latest Macro Musings podcast is with Ramesh Ponnuru. Ramesh is a National Review senior editor, Bloomberg view columnist, and a Visiting Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Ramesh has written widely on many topics from health care reform to tax policy to national security and is considered by many to be one of leading conservative intellectuals of our time. He has also written extensively on monetary policy. 

Ramesh writes regularly on monetary issues for the National Review and Bloomberg View as well in other outlets like the New York Times, The Atlantic, and The New Republic. He has been a forceful advocate in the conservative movement for taking a more nuanced yet rules-based approach toward monetary policy. Among other things, he called for the Fed to adopt a Nominal GDP level target, has questioned those who claim the Fed has kept interest rates artificially low, and has pushed back against those wanting a return to the gold standard. 

On a personal note, Ramesh has been a frequent coauthor of mine and was a key force behind me writing for a wider audience. So it was a real treat for me to sit down with him and do this podcast. 

You can listen to the podcast via iTunes or Sound Cloud, or through the embedded player. And remember to subscribe since more guest are coming! 

Related Links:
Fallible Fed Needs a Few Good Rules--Ramesh Ponnuru
Fed Should Target Spending, Not Inflation--Ramesh Ponnuru
Saver's Real Problem--Ramesh Ponnuru and David Beckworth
The Right Goal for Central Banks--Ramesh Ponnuru and David Beckworth
Tight Budgets, Loose Money: Why Both Liberals and Conservatives Are Wrong About How to Fix the Economy--Ramesh Ponnuru and David Beckworth
Krugman's Fatal Conceit--Ramesh Ponnuru
Stagnant Economics: the Case Against Secular Stagnation--Ramesh Ponnuru and David Beckworth

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Storytelling: Friday Chart Edition

Image
I have not posted here in awhile, so I thought it would be good to share a few recent charts that tell interesting stories. Central Bank Balance Sheets First up, are two charts that show the relationship between the size of the central bank balance sheets and inflation rates. The first one shows for the 2010-2019 period the average size of central bank balance sheets as a percent of NGDP plotted against the average core inflation rate. Since larger balance sheets are typically seen as adding more stimulus to the economy, one might expect to see a positive relationship between their size and the inflation rate over this long of an horizon. Instead, we see a negative relationship: One objection to the above chart is it may be misleading since it is the rate of change in central bank liabilities, not the level, that should drive the inflation rate. To that end, the next chart shows the change in the size of the central bank balance sheets over the same period. The same relationship ho...
Read more

The Passive Tightening of ECB Policy

I recently argued that the Fed and the ECB were passively tightening monetary policy and thus responsible, in part, for the increasing economic stress in their regions.  Michael T. Darda makes the same argument today for the Eurozone in his note titled " Anatomy of a Deflationary Debt Collapse ": As the ECB fiddles with its forecast, European inflation-indexed bond spreads have plunged to record lows, while eurozone corporate bond spreads continue to hit new highs for the year. Inflation breakeven spreads in the indexed swap market in Europe have tumbled to the lowest level on record (i.e., below both the 2008 and 2010 lows). With corporate bond spreads at new 2011 highs this morning, the European Central Bank can now be blamed for a passive tightening of monetary policy. Why? Central banks are responsible for responding to velocity shocks by adjusting the supply of money to offset changes in the demand for money. If there is a spike in the demand for money and a central...
Read more

A Note to FOMC Members

According to this Bloomberg article , you are seriously discussing the adoption of an explicit inflation target.  Let me remind you that a price level target is even better since it has "memory".  Let me also remind you that during the September, 2010 FOMC meeting you folks discussed the possibility of a nominal GDP level target. There is much to like about a nominal GDP level target --it improves upon a price level target in how it handles supply shocks--and I hope you seriously consider it too.  
Read more