Category Archives: Scott Sumner is Coherent

Scott Sumner on AS-AD

Posted on July 20, 2014 by Arnold Kling

A good post. Read the whole thing. He ends up, I’d like to dispense with all discussion of AS and AD, and replace it with nominal shocks and real shocks. A nominal shock is an unexpected change in NGDP. A … Continue reading →

Posted in PSST and Macro, Scott Sumner is Coherent | 3 Comments

Financial Stability, Regulation, and Country Size

Posted on June 4, 2014 by Arnold Kling

Lorenzo writes, Something that is very clear, is that “de-regulation” is a term empty of explanatory power. All successful six have liberalised financial markets–Australia and New Zealand, for example, were leaders in financial “de-regulation”. If someone starts trying to blame … Continue reading →

Posted in Financial Crisis of 2008, Libertarian Thought, links to my essays, Scott Sumner is Coherent | 2 Comments

How to Fix Infrastructure

Posted on June 4, 2014 by Arnold Kling

Scott Sumner writes, I think a better comparison for New York would be a high income, world-class city like Singapore or Hong Kong or Dubai. Those places are able to build very good infrastructure quickly and at low cost. They … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics, Scott Sumner is Coherent | 8 Comments

The FOMC and its Target

Posted on May 1, 2014 by Arnold Kling

Van R. Hoisington and Lacy H. Hunt write, The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) has continuously been overly optimistic regarding its expectations for economic growth in the United States since the last recession ended in 2009. If their annual forecasts … Continue reading →

Posted in PSST and Macro, Scott Sumner is Coherent | 5 Comments

Mian-Sufi vs. Scott Sumner and John Taylor

Posted on March 31, 2014 by Arnold Kling

They write, What we are witnessing is the limit of what monetary policy alone can do. Sometimes there is a tendency to assume that the Fed can “target” any inflation rate it wishes, or that it can target the overall … Continue reading →

Posted in Mark Thoma is Indispensable, Monetary Economics, Scott Sumner is Coherent | 10 Comments

Shiller-Bashing

Posted on March 26, 2014 by Arnold Kling

Scott Sumner writes, I distinctly recall that Robert Shiller did not recommend that people buy stocks in 2009. That made me wonder when Robert Shiller did say it was a good time to buy stocks. Barry Ritholtz writes, By one … Continue reading →

Posted in books and book reviews, financial markets, Scott Sumner is Coherent | 12 Comments

Working with the Tautology Model

Posted on March 7, 2014 by Arnold Kling

Scott Sumner writes, the NGDP approach is a very naive model that treats NGDP sort of like a big pot of money, which is shared out among workers with sticky wages. If some day the pot is smaller, then there’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Monetary Economics, PSST and Macro, Scott Sumner is Coherent | 4 Comments

Scott Sumner on the Fed Transcripts

Posted on February 24, 2014 by Arnold Kling

He writes, Note that on the very day of the September 16 meeting, the meeting at which the Fed refused to cut rates due to fear of “high inflation,” the TIPS spreads were showing only 1.23% inflation over the next … Continue reading →

Posted in Financial Crisis of 2008, Scott Sumner is Coherent | Comments Off

Inferring from an Identity

Posted on February 7, 2014 by Arnold Kling

Scott Sumner writes, To my eyes it looks like “real wages” [(nominal average hourly earnings)/(NGDP/pop)] lead unemployment by about a month or two Shock me, shock me. Let’s see: NGDP = RGDP * P = N * (RGDP/N) * W*(P/W) … Continue reading →

Posted in PSST and Macro, Scott Sumner is Coherent | 4 Comments

Macro Experiments are not Controlled

Posted on January 7, 2014 by Arnold Kling

Alex Tabarrok writes, I happen to agree with Krugman that one test is not decisive. The economy is very complex and we don’t have controlled macro-experiments so lots of things are going on at the same time. Read the whole … Continue reading →

Posted in Mark Thoma is Indispensable, PSST and Macro, Scott Sumner is Coherent | 9 Comments