This policy brief reports on the NGDP gap, a measure of unexpected changes in the dollar size of the US economy, is the percent difference between the actual and the neutral level of NGDP. The neutral level of NGDP, in turn, is a sum of all dollar incomes expected by households and businesses...

Over the past fourteen years, the U.S. Federal Reserve has rescued overleveraged financial companies, purchased trillions of dollars of mortgage-backed securities, and created novel facilities to support ordinary businesses, nonprofits, and local governments. While some argue that the Fed has...

European economic and monetary union is driven by politics, but the economic costs and benefits of Britain's membership can and should be assessed, argues Professor Patrick Minford in this careful and succinct analysis of the cases for and against Britain adopting the euro. The core argument in...

The rise of independent institutions, particularly central banks, and the increasing significance of the interplay between monetary, fiscal, and financial policies demand a critical reassessment of modern macroeconomic constitutions and their institutional architectures.The paper's core focus...

The “crisis exaggerators” are telling us that current economic conditions amount to an “unprecedented” global economic recession. This is historically incorrect. What is unprecedented is the degree to which economic commentators and political leaders are talking up economic downturn....

This work is focused on identifying the relationship an economic system and its policies have with the environment. The biosphere is chosen in particular as object of analysis but this can be extended by means of an ecosystem recursive properties. The common factor involved in the relationship...

Once again the economic experts are telling us that the current (October 2008) financial “crisis” will lead to a deep recession or depression. The financial press is even claiming that we are headed for “global meltdown”. Heard it all before? The last time was in 1998 when we were told...

Unlike my distinguished fellow panelists, I am not the head of a central bank. So I take my marching orders from the conference organizers. In this case, they asked me to ruminate on the extent to which central banks’ independence and credibility have been affected by their actions during the...

About six years ago, I published a small book entitled The Quiet Revolution (Blinder 2004). Though its subtitle was Central Banking Goes Modern, I never imagined the half of it. Since March 2008, the Federal Reserve has gone post-modern with a bewildering variety of unprecedented actions that...