Economics

对货币史的利用及滥用

Apr 10, 2013 Barry Eichengreen

发自伯克利——让我们设想有两种中央银行。一种是极度活跃且对事件反应迅速有力。虽然外界肯定不会指责这种银行忽略了当前事态发展，但会普遍批评其政策将在未来埋下隐患。

另一种央行行事从容不迫。事件发生时它依然保持冷静，并会不惜任何代价来避免做出那些可能会被视为鼓励过度冒险或是制造一小轮通胀的举措。

我刚刚描述的可不仅仅是设想。事实上，这就是对美联储和欧洲央行的简略描述。

To continue reading, register now.

Subscribe now for unlimited access to everything PS has to offer.

As a registered user, you can enjoy more PS content every month – for free.

Already have an account? Log in

Subscribe to PS Digital

Access every new PS commentary, our entire On Point suite of subscriber-exclusive content – including Longer Reads, Insider Interviews, Big Picture/Big Question, and Say More – and the full PS archive.

Subscribe Now

new comment has been posted. new comments have been posted.

0 Comments on this paragraph, 8 Comments on this article

Dan Adams Apr 24, 2013

The US economy is the 1930s was only really saved by a catastrophic war.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Ross Clem Apr 13, 2013

Was it monetary policy in the 1930s that fueled U.S. recovery from the depression or the WWII?
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Pingfan Hong Apr 12, 2013

After the ECB launched the outright monetary transaction (OMT) programme in September 2012, there is no much difference between the ECB and the US Fed their monetary approaches any more.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Procyon Mukherjee Apr 11, 2013

Robert Solow's note on Federal Reserve (How to save American Finance) that was written on 8th April opens up new thought on the challenges of excessive supply when the last dollars of financial activity absorbs more resources while doing precious little in improving either productivity or efficiency. This marginal efficiency issue has always been downplayed as the quantum increase in trading activity masks this. Trade is hardly an avenue for sustainable changes to happen in the economy.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Procyon Mukherjee Apr 11, 2013

I fully agree with Barry that the abuse of Monetary History is rampant in the cognitive dissonance that abounds around the continuation of an ultra loose monetary policy for extended periods of time; current historicity seem to suggest with the help of data that the impact is transitory in form of constructive and sustainable demand/job creation engine while its influence to make bubbles in certain classes of assets has been confirmatory. Barry’s reference to prior periods as old as 1920 or 1930 has very little significance given the excessive financialization that we are avowed in current times.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Gerald Silverberg Apr 10, 2013

Or there is a third alternative, that in a balance-sheet recession, monetary policy is largely ineffectual ("pushing on a string"). It was only fiscal policy (massive infrastructure and armaments expenditures), naturally with supporting credit expansion, that brought countries out of the Great Depression one by one after leaving the Gold Standard and suspending/repudiating international debts.

But Eichengreen's point is well taken - that Europe's obsession with the German hyperinflation of 1923 is misplaced and puzzling, and that the proper analogy is with the disastrous Brüning austerity emergency decrees and Austrian Creditanstalt bank run of 1931.

You can vote for candidates for the 'Creditanstalt' Brüning and Mellon Memorial Prizes at http://silverberg-on-meltdown-economics.blogspot.com/2013/03/announcing-creditanstalt-heinrich.html.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Michael Heller Apr 10, 2013

Barry: You’ve moved the dates around a fraction, but basically you are the umpteenth person to say the 1920s and 1930s are terribly relevant to the situation today. I doubt that. Just look around you. Does it still look like 90 years ago? I don’t think so. The variables are completely different, and the juxtaposition or inter-causality of the variables is similarly utterly different. I stifle a yawn before suggesting that it might be far more useful to get to grips with the underlying logical reasoning contained within the raging debates among classic masters of economic theory either side of the 1930s, who have no parallel today (evidence here). Max Weber, Joseph Schumpeter, Friedrich Hayek, James Buchanan, to mention only five if one includes Keynes. Your certainty, along with the certainty of the predominant media-savvy economist-intellectuals, seems so entirely shaped by Keynes that I simply cannot take seriously your historical analogies. If your analogies had any value at all they could not avoid drawing attention to the raging differences of opinion that fundamentally shaped the policy processes of the day 90 years ago. Instead you yourself have succumbed to the simplistic dichotomies of history’s straw man analogies. For this reason I conclude that yours, on this particular occasion, have no practical value in the present day. They are empty not only of Schumpeter but of logic and theory.
- Robert Lunn Apr 30, 2013
  
  Michael-it sure does not remind me of the 1930's. His "tale of two central banks" should be questioned on the premise. The ECB has engaged and promoted aggressive carry trade options bringing down rates on the periphery. They are also starting from a different level of intervention. (Cost of the safety net for example.) My point is the results of the activity by both banks should be examined.
  If measured by the impact on the average person, the Fed loses hands down.
  A new reply to this comment has been posted.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.

https://prosyn.org/DSIE2JFzh

对货币史的利用及滥用

Subscribe to PS Digital

New Comment

Contact us

Log in/Register

对货币史的利用及滥用

Subscribe to PS Digital

Edit Newsletter Preferences

Set up Notification