Economics

معالجة مشكل التضخم

Feb 25, 2021 Robert J. Barro

كمبريدج ـ قبل خمسة عقود، كانت أكبر تحديات الاقتصاد الكلي في الولايات المتحدة تتمثل في ارتفاع معدلات التضخم، حيث بلغ متوسط معدل التضخم أكثر من 6٪ في السبعينيات وارتفع إلى 10٪ بحلول نهاية العقد. ثم تم تعيين رئيس مجلس الاحتياطي الفيدرالي الأمريكي بول فولكر من قبل الرئيس جيمي كارتر عام 1979 وأعاد تعيينه الرئيس رونالد ريجان عام 1983.

في عام 1981، نجح فولكر في التغلب على آفة التضخم من خلال اعتماد سياسة أسعار الفائدة المرتفعة. من خلال التمسك بهذه السياسة في مواجهة الركود الاقتصادي، أقنع فولكر الأسواق المالية والشركات والأسر بأن بنك الاحتياطي الفيدرالي سيفعل كل ما هو ضروري لضمان معدل تضخم مُنخفض ومُستقر في المستقبل.

بعد مرور عدة سنوات، أصبح هذا الالتزام القوي لأحد كبار صُناع السياسات النقدية نموذجًا يُحتذى به لماريو دراغي، حين التزم، بصفته رئيسًا للبنك المركزي الأوروبي في عام 2012، "بفعل كل ما يلزم" للحفاظ على اليورو. لا شك أن نجاح دراغي في هذه المهمة يُفسر سبب توليه للتو منصب رئيس الوزراء في الحكومة الإيطالية.

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0 Comments on this paragraph, 4 Comments on this article

Richard Boltuck Feb 28, 2021

So how did the Fed balloon its balance sheet and hence banking reserves over the decade-plus since the 2008 financial crisis without stimulating much greater inflation to date, including by the peak of the recovery in 2019 or early 2020? Why would that pattern have sustained Fed "credibility" and low inflationary expectations?

My supposition is that the introduction of the radically new policy of sterilizing excess reserves on account at the Fed through the payment of sufficient interest (at artificially low short-term economy-wide rates), thereby preventing high-powered money from fueling an expansion in transactional money (M1, M2, etc.) through the multiple-creation process has done the job -- to date. The problem is that this technique just shifts the time profile of costs and consequences. There remains no free lunch. To conclude otherwise is an exercise in the fallacy of inductive reasoning -- the type of reasoning that leads the man who jumped from the skyscraper to be heard saying, "so far, so good" as he passes the 50th floor.

Prof. Barro, thoughts?
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Jim Quinn Feb 28, 2021

As soon as the Democrats are put in charge we are told to worry about inflation, deficits and debt. Where were you when the corrupt, incompetent liar was in charge?
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David Lentz Feb 27, 2021

It’s fine for policy makers. Volkers high interest rates destroyed the USA middle class. 18 percent mortgages. Plus the destruction of unions in the privates sector and offshore of to China. Foreign policy could have been used you tell the Saudis turn on the taps or we seize your country. Basing the interest rate on the price of one commodity was not good policy
18 percent interest rates destroyed the middle class
That created the rage that created Trump

And everyone keeps praising Volcker and Reagan
They destroyed America for most Americans
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Robert Wolff Feb 25, 2021

I am of the same opinion as the author. Throwing money at a failing capitalist economy will not save Capitalism, only make future Socialism inevitable.

The Weimar Republic (post-WWI Germany)experienced the actual phenomenon the author warns of (spectacular inflationary recession which Volcker stopped in the early 1980's through extremely dire measures that resolved the inflationary trends but at the expense of a rapid economic contraction).

Along with the rise of Chinese production and sales and falling US production and sales, its combination with another inflationary recession in America would be deadly and possibly have equivalent consequences to the failure of the German Weimar Republic (another world war incited by US as the only option for America to stabilize its economy).
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