By Marc Chandler Originally published on Marc to Market There is a general understanding of what happened last week. The 2.9% rise in average hourly earnings in the US reported, the fastest since 2009 spurred fears of rising inflation. The jump in US interest rates triggered equity sales and a spike in volatility, which in turn spurred the unwinding of low vol bets that had been paying off handsomely. While this consensus narrative has much to recommend itself, there is a...
Read More »US Rates: Real or Expectations?
By Marc Chandler Originally published on Marc to Market There is a general understanding of what happened last week. The 2.9% rise in average hourly earnings in the US reported, the fastest since 2009 spurred fears of rising inflation. The jump in US interest rates triggered equity sales and a spike in volatility, which in turn spurred the unwinding of low vol bets that had been paying off handsomely. While this consensus narrative has much to recommend itself, there is a...
Read More »Jared Bernstein — Questions for the MMTers
MMT (functional finance actually) challenged. Why is fiscal policy based on FF superior to monetary policy as presently conducted?Let the debate begin.On the EconomyQuestions for the MMTersJared Bernstein | Senior Fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and former Chief Economist and Economic Adviser to Vice President Joe Biden in the Obama Administration
Read More »David P. Goldman — Still no Phillpsy-Curve
New data shows continued weak inflation in US, Europe Asia TimesStill no Phillpsy-Curve David P. GoldmanUS tax bill gets huge boost as McCain says yes
Read More »Ten considerations for the next Alberta budget
Posted by Nick Falvo under aboriginal peoples, Alberta, budgets, Child Care, cities, demographics, education, employment, environment, fiscal federalism, fiscal policy, gender critique, homeless, housing, HST, income, income distribution, income support, Indigenous people, inflation, minimum wage, municipalities, NDP, oil and gas, poverty, privatization, progressive economic strategies, Role of government, social policy, taxation, wages, women. November 29th, 2017Comments:...
Read More »Brian Romanchuk — On Using NAIRU To Analyse A Job Guarantee
Professor Simon Wren-Lewis wrote "Some thoughts about the Job Guarantee," in which he makes an attempt to analyse a Job Guarantee using the NAIRU concept. The analysis suffers from the well-known defects of NAIRU. In the article, he argues that a Job Guarantee implementation would cause a one-time upward shock to wages. He argues that this is not "acknowledged" by MMT authors, even though it appears this effect is common knowledge to anyone who has read the MMT literature. As a result,...
Read More »Stephen S Poloz — Understanding inflation – getting back to basics
Remarks by Mr Stephen S Poloz, Governor of the Bank of Canada, to the CFA Montreal and Montreal Council on Foreign Relations, Montreal, Quebec, 7 November 2017. Bank of International SettlementsStephen S Poloz: Understanding inflation - getting back to basics
Read More »Brian Romanchuk — Initial Comments On Zero Rate Policy And Inflation Stability
This article represents my initial comments on the question of the stability implications of locking interest rates at zero. Martin Watts, an Australian academic, had an interesting presentation at the first Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) conference (link to videos of presentations). Although MMT fits within a broad-tent definition of "post-Keynesian" economics, there are still sharp debates with other post-Keynesians. One topic of debate is the effect of permanently locking the policy...
Read More »Tom Rees — Bank of England hikes interest rates for first time in a decade
Bank of England increases interest rates for the first time in a decade in order curb high inflation squeezing UK households Base rate lifted from 0.25pc to 0.5pc; Mark Carney will give a press conference at 12.45pm to explain the central bank's decision Bank of England last hiked interest rates in July 2007; interest rates fell to historic lows to help the UK economy recover from the financial crisis Pound plunges on currency markets on dovish commentary from the central bank The...
Read More »Brian Romanchuk — MMT And Automatic Stabilizers
The recent internet debates about Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) have been interesting, but the various critics of MMT have largely missed the elephant in the room: automatic fiscal stabilisers. In my view (which may not reflect the official "MMT Party Line"), one of the keys strengths of MMT is that it is largely built around the importance of automatic stabilisers, and institutional details. The conventional view is to acknowledge the existence of automatic stabilisers, but otherwise...
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