In the context of the 2008 Financial-Crisis in the US
economy that send jitters to the rest of the global economies, the long divide
between the “freshwater” and “saltwater” economists also known as “the neo-Classicals”
and “the neo-Keynesians”, respectively, over the rigidity or sticky or
no-rigidity of the key economic-variables, could be brought to the light of
evidences to understand the view-point of the two schools of thought. The
neo-Classicals maintain that the economy in the long-run could self-equilibrate
with the help of change in the real economic variables like, real-wages, real-interest
rate and real exchange rate, i.e. inflation adjusted variables, while the neo-Keynesians
believe in government intervention and sticky or rigid prices to converge the
economy to stability. In the earnest efforts to tackle the recession that
followed the Lehman-brothers, an investment bank, collapse the Federal Reserve Bank of the US embarked on massive monetary-easing and set inflation target to
achieve economic-activity, full-employment and growth-rate. Nevertheless, the
economy after these seven–years showed recovery in terms of employment and
economic growth, but inflation remained below the target. Even after so much of
easing the economy failed to increase demand and inflation and the discussion
is still on to raise the inflation target, but as we know inflation is also a
kind of tax and it reduces demand and growth by increasing the price-level and
the interest rate. Thus, inflation reduces demand. The Fed initially thought
that more money-supply would increase inflation and inflation expectation, but
this did not happen as oil-prices, that have constrained the growth many times,
have gone down due to innovation in crude oil by shale. “Targeting” and “expectations”
have been the buzzwords in Economics, now the countries target economic
variables like prices or inflation, wages, interest-rate, exchange rate and
economic-growth, and also try to shape expectations about the future- values of
economic variables. There has been a tradition among the major economies to
target higher GDP projections to increase investment. Nonetheless, inflation
targeting and exchange rate targeting are also not uncommon. However, the
question is still there that which variables to target, nominal or real and if
there is a need for government-intervention (?). The neo-Classicals favor the real
economic-variables, but not government-intervention; however, it is still
unclear that the central-bank is a part of the government although independent.
Keynes’ prescribed fiscal-policy in the liquidity-trap to increase
nominal-wages and effective-demand whereas Pigou recommended to increase
real-wages and, probably, the same effective-demand. Notwithstanding, if we
target real variables with the help of monetary and fiscal policy we might get
results or outcomes soon. We might try to affect real-variables since nominal
variables confuse the agents. For example, the Fed has committed inflation and
also income which might send contradictory signals about real wages and
real-wages expectation which reflect the real position. In this situation
spending would be low and people would also save more due to higher inflation
expectation which during recessions may negatively affect demand/supply and
economic-growth. Conversely, if people see and expect lower prices they would
increase spending because real-wages and real-wage-expectations would go-up.
Similarly, if the Capitalist see and expect lower prices of investment goods
and services, they would increase investment because real cost would go down
and real profits could increase. Moreover, if foreign importers see and expect lower
domestic prices they would import more because real exchange rate would
increase, exports would increase. All the three cases above might help increase
demand/supply, employment and the economic-growth, but with the help of low
inflation and inflationary-expectations and real economic-variables. However,
the Fed is trying to the same with the help of higher inflation and inflation
expectations and nominal variables which have given only limited results and
sub-par growth rate. The US has had been the home of many great economists of
which Milton Friedman is outstanding and widely celebrated. He himself proposed
“the optimal-monetary-policy” that says that monetary-policy might give better
outcomes in terms of demand/supply, employment and economic growth if the
nominal interest rate is set substantially low and there is little deflationary
bias in the economy (Aubhik Khan, Robert
G. King & Alexander L. Wolman, 2002). Moreover, the relationship between
deflation and depression is weak and there are periods of satisfactory growth
and deflation in the history (Andrew Atkeson, Patrick J. Kehoe, 2004). The Fed is indirectly targeting
nominal wages, interest-rate and exchange rate through inflation which misses
the outcome of more demand/supply, employment and growth-rate, but if the Fed
targets real wages, real-interest-rate and real exchange rate by lowering inflation and inflationary
expectations or through little deflation it might be able to achieve better
outcomes, demand and growth. There has been a real-wage and productivity gap in
the US since 1970’s which the Fed and the government might try to level in
order to increase domestic demand and growth (Mark Setterfield, 2010).
Committing a lower inflation or little deflation path by the monetary-policy
might help increase real wages and domestic demand. Likewise it would also
increase real-return on investment and wealth thereby increasing supply and
growth (Jonas Crews, Kevin L. Kliesen and Christopher J. Waller, 2016), and, is
also likely to increase real-exchange-rate (real-exchange-rate equals
nominal-exchange rate multiplied by the foreign country price-level divided
by the domestic price-level) and exports, and growth. Friedman has clearly acknowledged
that the optimal-monetary-policy would entail dis-inflation or little deflation
and would require a sufficiently low nominal interest-rate. In the
developed-world the evidences show that price-levels in these countries have
gone down even with huge increases in the money-supply and lower interest-rates
in the long-run. In the long-run, perhaps lower borrowing cost has helped
improve supply and lower the price-level. The Fed may review Friedman’s
optimal-monetary-policy in respect to the relationship between lose
money-supply, lower borrowing cost, more supply, lower price-level or inflation
and real-variables – real-wages, real-interest-rate and real-exchange-rate - for
better guidance about the future monetary-policy.
Sunday, August 21, 2016
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