Sunday, September 8, 2013

The best thing I've read in a long time.


Reviewing a PDF by Alan Blinder and Jeremy B. Rudd, Arnold Kling writes:

It is an article of faith among economists that the 1970s inflation and the 1980s disinflation both came from monetary policy, but that does not make it a proven fact. Maybe we have too much faith. Instead, we should be willing to examine data and adopt a skeptical perspective...

Amen to that!

// Update (8 Sept 9:35 pm)

Steve Randy Waldman writes

I am writing in 2013 about choices made in 1973 because I think a mythology has developed around 1970s experience that is very harmful.

There seems to be a lot of re-thinking going on.

3 comments:

Jazzbumpa said...

Here's some relevant food for thought.

http://www.asymptosis.com/did-the-baby-boom-labor-force-surge-cause-the-great-inflation.html

Cheers!
JzB

The Arthurian said...

Jazz, I saw the post at Interfluidity and was tempted to parry it with this one from Chart Porn. For the life of me I cannot say why.

SRW's post was very interesting, but it would take a lot of pondering-time, and a lot of graphs, before I might find it convincing.

The Arthurian said...

SRW again:
"I’m talking about the inflation of the 1970s. Sorry, Milton, I know you got a lot of mileage out of the line, but the great inflation was not at root a monetary phenomenon."