Tag Archives: targeting

Nominal GDP Targeting is Left, Right?

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The recent surge in interest in Nominal GDP Targeting, as an alternative to money targeting or inflation targeting if the central bank is to commit to a nominal target of some sort, has prompted some pushback.   This is not surprising.  But one of the responses is most peculiar.  This is the allegation (1) that the surge comes from liberals opportunistically adopting an idea that was originally proposed by conservatives, and (2) that they will not stick with this “fad” in the longer run because it is only designed to fit current circumstances of high unemployment and low output.   Remarkably, every component of this argument is wrong. read more

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Prospects for Inflation outside America – Guest Post from Menzie Chinn

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Menzie Chinn, Prof. of Economics at University of Wisconsin, is guest posting this week:

I want to thank Jeff Frankel for the opportunity to be a guest writer on his blog.

A lot of attention has been devoted to how oil price and food price shocks have affected the US economy, both along the output and price dimensions. A general presumption has been that as long as inflation expectations remain well anchored, then one need not worry about 1970’s style stagflation (recession is another matter).

However, there are many places in the world where inflation expectations are not well anchored. Or at least we can’t tell if they’re well anchored or not. Figure 1 presents data for several key groups (using the IMF classifications): Industrial countries, LDCs excluding oil exporters, oil exporters and developing Asia. read more

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