This essay examines the contemporary discourse on inflation through the lens of Wittgenstein's late work on language games. Using his concept of hinge propositions - beliefs upon which language games depend - I offer a novel perspective on the public good that is price stability. In particular,...

The goal of this paper is twofold. First, we wish to better explain the relationship between Sargent and Wallace's (1981) unpleasant monetarist arithmetic, the closely connected fiscal theory of the price level (FTPL), and the monetarist view of inflation. Second, we discuss how the recent...

The Quantity Theory of Money claims to provide one of the few long-run guides to economic policy by providing specific numbers to characterise the correlation between money growth and inflation. Acceptance of the Quantity Theory has been greatly helped by the claim, propounded most effectively...

The annual announcement of monetary targets which the Deutsche Bundesbank started in 1974 is considered a core element of German monetary policy after the end of the Bretton Woods regime of fixed exchange rates. The paper asks to what extent this reorientation was shaped by monetarist ideas and...

The goal of this paper is twofold. First, we wish to better explain the relationship between Sargent and Wallace's (1981) unpleasant monetarist arithmetic, the closely connected fiscal theory of the price level (FTPL), and the monetarist view of inflation. Second, we discuss how the recent...

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Hajo Riese (FU Berlin) was a pioneer of the "Berlin School of Monetary Keynesianism", particularly in the 1980s and 1990s. His research work was based on the roots of monetary theory in the work of J. M. Keynes, with a particular focus on the theory of capital and interest rates. While in Keynes...

The annual announcement of monetary targets which the Deutsche Bundesbank started in 1974 is considered a core element of German monetary policy after the end of the Bretton Woods regime of fixed exchange rates. The paper asks to what extent this reorientation was shaped by monetarist ideas and...

This paper is about the Department of Economics at the University of Chicago, between 1947 and 1982. The paper has the form of a conversation between the two authors and covers issues such as the existence of a "Chicago School," the Department's governance, the personalities of some well-known...

This paper is about the Department of Economics at the University of Chicago, between 1947 and 1982. The paper has the form of a conversation between the two authors and covers issues such as the existence of a "Chicago School," the Department's governance, the personalities of some well-known...

Lucas (1972) was a paper that permanently changed the course of macroeconomics, even though its "money supply surprise" model lost its central place in the area within a decade because of empirical difficulties. However, Lucas's novel methodology, based on clearing markets and rational...

Modern mainstream macroeconomics treats the economy 'as if' always in equilibrium. Two older traditions, Monetarism and the Wicksell Connections have always dissented, arguing that how agents gather information and apply it to the co-ordination of their activities are prior problems requiring...

If you’re just tuning in, I’ve spent the last few months debunking some common misconceptions about inflation: Is inflation a uniform increase in prices? No. Inflation is wildly differential. Is inflation driven by an ‘over-heated’ economy? No. Inflation tends to come with economic...

This paper argues that the distinction between Keynesianism and Monetarism is not a useful frame for the debate on monetary policy during the past decade. The main driver of this debate is the secular decline in the real interest rates over the past four decades. It is more useful to distinguish...

To study implications of an interest-bearing CBDC on the economy, we integrate a New Monetarist-type decentralised market that explicitly accounts for the means-of-exchange function of bank deposits and CBDC into a New Keynesian model with financial frictions. The central bank influences the...

Milton Friedman’s longstanding advocacy in favor of floating exchange rates has contributed to a mistaken belief that he opposed currency board regimes or outright dollarization. Nothing could be further from the truth. Over a period of almost five decades Friedman consistently made it clear...

The objective of Ed Nelson’s two-volume book, Milton Friedman and Economic Debate in the United States, 1932-1972, is to provide an account of Friedman’s views in major monetary-policy debates during the period identified in the book’s title. Nelson tells the story of the development of...

Modern mainstream macroeconomics treats the economy “as if” always in equilibrium. Two older traditions, Monetarism and the Wicksell Connections have always dissented, arguing that how agents gather information and apply it to the co-ordination of their activities are prior problems...

Classical law and economics is foundational to the American legal system. Centered at the University of Chicago, with a reach touching nearly every law faculty and economics department in the country, its assumptions, most especially that humans act both rationally and selfishly, informs the...

Whenever inflation rears its head, the call soon comes to raise interest rates. The rationale is simple. Higher interest rates put a damper on the supply of money. And this monetary clamp slows inflation. It’s so intuitive that it must be true. Or is it? As the Reverend Brooke observes, it...

Part I. Monetary Macroeconomics -- Chapter 1. Macro’s Missing Links. Exploring the Space between Monetarism and the Wicksell Connection (David Laidler) -- Chapter 2. The problems of inflation targeting originate in the monetary theory of Knut Wicksell (Lars Jonung) -- Chapter 3. Price...

This paper discusses monetarist objections to the IS-LM model. We explore the views of two principal spokesmen for monetarism: Milton Friedman and the team of Karl Brunner and Allan Meltzer. Friedman did not explicitly state the reasons he generally chose not to use the IS-LM model in rejecting...

Contrary to the conclusion of Sargent and Wallace, it is possible to exogenously and independently vary monetary and fiscal policy and retain steady-state equlibrium in economies like the United States. In particular,the central bank is not forced to monetize increased deficits either now or in...

In many countries, inflation has become less responsive to domestic factors and more responsive to global factors over the past decades. We introduce money and credit into the workhorse open-economy New Keynesian model. With this framework, we show that: (i) an efficient forecast of domestic...

Given the current state of technology, agents could potentially deal with exchange by transferring directly Central Bank fiat monies. Are we close to private banks becoming “technologically obsolete” in the provision of payment services?. To provide insights into this question, we build a...

Everybody knows that Chicago scholars dismissed predatory pricing as a practice of concern for antitrust law due to its alleged unprofitability, both relative and absolute. Many know that the dismissal dates back to the early years of the Chicago revolution in antitrust and has been reiterated...

Milton Friedman's longstanding advocacy in favor of floating exchange rates has contributed to a mistaken belief that he opposed currency board regimes or outright dollarization. Nothing could be further from the truth. Over a period of almost five decades Friedman consistently made it clear...