Re:How Low Can Central Banks Go? JPMorgan Reckons Way Lower
by pas on Monday February 15, 2016 @03:23AM
(#11102126)
I'm not familiar enough with NGDP targeting (basically, I just heard the name, and know that it came up a few times after 2008), and sounds a hundredfold better than this wishy-washy design by a tea leaves cabal/committee. Though, I guess the committee then would determine the NGDP target. Which leads to the question, how do we know when a "deleveraging" is in order? (What's the consequence of sticking to 5% YoY GDP growth and never looking back? What if we overestimate the growth of the economy, that seems like real inflation.)
I'm not inventing this, this is from Milton Friedman.
You judge monetary policy by its result: where are the variables you are targeting vs your targets?
The Fed's target is "low inflation and full employment". Since over the past decade we've had very little inflation and high unemployment, we can conclude that Fed monetary policy was tight.
You might blame the less-than-specific target that the policy makers have chosen for this and you'd be right, it's way too vague and not that useful.
A much better target would be the level of average nominal wage per capita, or highly related but simpler: level of nominal GDP.
Based on these targets, monetary policy has been very tight over the past few years, particularly in the Eurozone.
Monetary policy is neutral if nominal GDP remains on a 5%/year growth path. Big drops in NGDP is basically equivalent to the central bank punching the economy in the stomach.