This paper compares various proposals for monetary policy rules according to the standard of political economy. It first presents an argument for why rules-based monetary policy is preferable to discretionary policy. Next it discusses at a general level two kinds of rules: those that can be...

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has claimed that the Fed's bank bailouts during the 2008 financial crisis were consistent with Walter Bagehot's rules for a lender of last resort. This paper demonstrates Bernanke's claims to be mistaken. First, we outline Bagehot's doctrine for a classical...

Among LawMacro scholars, there is a growing interest in the incorporation of distributional goals into economic institutions and policies, especially central banks. We argue that this approach threatens to undermine the rule of law in monetary policy. This is troubling because the rule of law is...

This paper is an introduction to contemporary discussions within monetary theory and policy. The paper focuses on comparing proposals for monetary policy rules. It first lays out an argument for why monetary policy?defined here broadly to mean adjusting the money supply in an attempt to...

I consider whether a rules-based fiat money system can outperform the gold standard in delivering economic stability. I discuss the potential objectives of monetary policy in Section 1 and the means for achieving the objective in Section 2. I turn to questions of political economy in Section 3....