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The Fed’s $1 Billion Stash of Unwanted Coins
(Hemera) The folks over at NPR’s Planet Money have a great piece today on the stash of unused dollar coins that’s piling up at the Federal Reserve. Back in 2005, Congress passed a law ordering the...
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QE3? Not So Fast. Let’s Debate the Merits of QE2 First
Photo: Medill DC The Fed’s second round of monetary stimulus, the $600 billion QE2, ended on June 30. Since then, financial markets have rallied on news of another Greek bailout, and then fallen on...
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Dollar Coins for Airline Miles? Bon Voyage!
(Hemera) A few weeks ago, we wrote about the Fed’s $1 billion stash of unwanted coins, and the Federal government’s seemingly failed experiment to get us to trade in our dollar bills for dollar coins....
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Interpreting the Fed: How Did it Lower Rates This Time?
Photo: snowlepard I’ve found a lot of the recent discussion about the Fed to be, frankly, confused. So I thought it worth trying to put the issues into a broader context. Read the Fed’s latest...
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Previewing Jackson Hole: Why Markets Are Setting Themselves Up for...
Photo: snowlepard On Friday all econ-loving eyes will be focused on Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Think of it as Oscar night for macroeconomists. Except with sensible shoes rather than plunging necklines. But...
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Bernanke Speaks. But What Did He Say?
Photo: Medill DC So Ben Bernanke finally spoke today. And as I predicted yesterday, all the early headlines are expressing disappointment that he didn’t announce QE3. But this disappointment is...
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Operation Twist 101
(Hemera) Given the confusion about Operation Twist, here’s an explanation. What is Operation Twist? Basically the Fed can’t reduce short-term interest rates any further—they’re already at zero. So...
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Dear Occupy Wall Street: Are You Sure You’re in the Right Place?
Photo: david_shankbone I get it – people are angry. Very, very angry. I’m angry too. And Wall Street sure makes a great scapegoat, hence the Occupy Wall Street protest. Wall Street is a symbol of the...
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What Does Your Fed Valentine Say?
(Photo: Karen Horton) One of the most wonderful things about Twitter is the spontaneous conversations that start around almost anything. And so, inspired by the hilarious #HealthPolicyValentines, I...
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What can Eeyore and Tigger Teach Bernanke About Monetary Policy?
(Photo: Loren Javier) What can Eeyore and Tigger tell us about the current state of monetary policy? A lot. At least that’s the argument that Betsey Stevenson and I make in our new column for...
View ArticleThe New head of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke
Everywhere I go, people are asking me what I think of the new chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke. I know Bernanke pretty well because he was Chairman of the Princeton Economics department at...
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Why We Should Exit Ultra-Low Rates: A Guest Post by Raghuram Rajan
Raghuram Rajan, a University of Chicago economics professor and former chief economist of the IMF, has been popping up on the blog a lot lately -?answering our questions about his new book Fault Lines...
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Is The Fed Responsible for Higher Oil Prices?
Photo: tiseb Vincent R. Reinhart thinks so. Reinhart, an economist at the American Enterprise Institute and a former director of the Federal Reserve Board’s Division of Monetary Affairs, argues that...
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The Fed's Wishful (And Wrong) Thinking About Unemployment
Photo: Medill DC No one seems to have noticed that the Fed’s latest unemployment projections just don’t make sense. While most economists are concerned about a jobless recovery, the Fed is forecasting...
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