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Tariffs and Monetary Policy: Moral Hazard and Rent Seeking

Summary:
Tariffs and Monetary Policy: Moral Hazard and Rent Seeking President Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on Mexico over immigration has pushed Federal Reserve Chair Jay Powell to say that if the tariffs lead to economic growth slowing, the Fed will cut interest rates.  While the bump may be about to end, this announcement was followed by a  solid global surge of stock markets on June 4 followed by smaller increases the next day.  This sets up a moral hazard situation for Trump where if he behaves irresponsibly on trade policy (with even GOP senators basically freaking out), the Fed might bail him out with interest rate cuts. How is rent seeking entering into this?  I note a point just made by Dean Baker, that all these tariffs Trump is imposing on his own

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Tariffs and Monetary Policy: Moral Hazard and Rent Seeking

President Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on Mexico over immigration has pushed Federal Reserve Chair Jay Powell to say that if the tariffs lead to economic growth slowing, the Fed will cut interest rates.  While the bump may be about to end, this announcement was followed by a  solid global surge of stock markets on June 4 followed by smaller increases the next day.  This sets up a moral hazard situation for Trump where if he behaves irresponsibly on trade policy (with even GOP senators basically freaking out), the Fed might bail him out with interest rate cuts.

How is rent seeking entering into this?  I note a point just made by Dean Baker, that all these tariffs Trump is imposing on his own without any Congressional approval offer him the option of allowing specific exemptions from them.  So Trump can grant exemptions to specific sectors or even firms that favor him.  So Trump’s trade wars are opening up a whole new vista for rent seeking.

Finally, and unsurprisingly, many of his trade policies look to fail to achieve their supposed goals.  This is pretty obvious for the case of the tariffs on Mexico, which by potentially weakening the Mexican economy weaken Mexico’s ability to reduce Central Americans from to the US.  Another case involves the Chinese firm Huawei, supposedly both to enhance US national security and support the US high tech sector.  But according to a story in the Washington Post, 6/5/19 reports that 61 percent of experts say that Trump’s ban on US firms supplying parts to Huawei will both weaken US national security by reducing US influence over Huawei and the whole 5G sector, with the relevant US firms being hurt.  I do not think even the Fed can bail the US economy out from this mess.

Barkley Rosser

Barkley Rosser
I remember how loud it was. I was a young Economics undergraduate, and most professors didn’t really slam points home the way Dr. Rosser did. He would bang on the table and throw things around the classroom. Not for the faint of heart, but he definitely kept my attention and made me smile. It is hard to not smile around J. Barkley Rosser, especially when he gets going on economic theory. The passion comes through and encourages you to come along with it in a truly contagious way. After meeting him, it is as if you can just tell that anybody who knows that much and has that much to say deserves your attention.

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