Friedman (1968) - his famous Presidential Address to the American Economic Association - contains an elementary error right at the heart of what is usually supposed to be the paper's crucial argument.  That is the argument to the effect that during an inflation, changing expectations shift in...

There is a widely believed but entirely mythical story to the effect that the discovery of 'the Phillips curve' was, in the 1960s and perhaps later, an inspiration to inflationist policy.  The point that this is a myth is argued in Forder, Macroeconomics and the Phillips curve myth, OUP 2014. ...

The Federal Reserve is 'independent', but contrary to opinions often expressed, it was not intended by its creators to be free from political control, although others involved in the debate over its establishment hoped that it would be. 'Independence' was independence from banking interests, not...

Samuelson and Solow published a widely read paper in the May issue of the American Economic Review of 1960. It discussed the causes of inflation, the Phillips curve, and related matters. Discussion of their paper frequently says that it presented the Phillips curve as a stable, exploitable...

Measures of central banks` independence and central banks` accountability which are based on an interpretation of their statutes provide, in themselves, no guidance for the assessment of legislative proposals. In the effectiveness of monetary policy, the crucial considerations relate to how...

The theory of policy credibility has been influential in both the design of monetary policymaking institutions and in the implementation of policy. In particular, the idea that `reputation` is important has been widely accepted. However, careful attention to its assumptions and implications of...