Economist's View: Has Monetarism Been Abandoned?

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David Altig on Monetarism:

Is Monetarism Dead?, by David Altig: Courtesy of Mark Thoma, I am sent to the Scientific American blog, where JR Minkel ruminates on the contributions of Milton Friedman, asking the question "Is economics a science?" Minkel offers up the question in the spirit of open debate, so fair enough. I did, however, find this passage somewhat puzzling:

Well, Friedman's most famous prediction was a pretty good one: he foresaw the possibility that high unemployment could accompany high inflation, a phenomenon better known as stagflation. That foretelling earned him the Nobel Memorial Prize, although Friedman's monetary theory is currently out of favor.

A similar sentiment is expressed by the eminent historian Niall Ferguson, in an article titled "Friedman is dead, monetarism is dead, but what about inflation?":

[I]t will be for monetarism — the principle that inflation could be defeated only by targeting the growth of the money supply and thereby changing expectations — that Friedman will be best remembered.

Why then has this, his most important idea, ceased to be honoured, even in the breach? Friedman outlived Keynes by half a century. But the same cannot be said for their respective theories. Keynesianism survived its inventor for at least three decades. Monetarism, by contrast, predeceased Milton Friedman by nearly two.

The claim that "Friedman's monetary theory is currently out of favor" is, I think, wildly overstated -- at best.

Pick up virtually any textbook in monetary or macroeconomics and what you will find is a presentation that it is fully steeped in Professor Friedman's justly famous "The Quantity Theory of Money: A Restatement." ...

So why the belief Friedman's views have fallen into disrepute? I think it is a result of two things that, in the end, have little to do with whether Friedman's version of the quantity theory remains the dominant intellectual tradition among macroeconomists.

First, there is the association of Friedman's oft-cited constant money growth rule with the broader quantity-theoretic logic. Part of the rationale for the constant money growth rule had to do with specific assumptions that Friedman invoked regarding money demand -- the assumption, specifically, that changes in money demand not associated with income growth tend to be relatively slow and predictable. Part of it had to do with his judgment that the control needed to successfully "fine tune" the economy far exceeds the capacity of mortal men and women. These elements are not, however, essential to the quantity theory itself. Not accepting Friedman's views on these matters is very much different than rejecting the general quantity theory framework or its core implication that inflation is, in the end, a monetary phenomenon.

Second, there is the fact that monetary aggregates are themselves little used in the practical implementation of monetary policy. An exception, of course, is the European Central Bank, which still claims fealty to the notion that growth in monetary aggregates is a legitimate guide to policy choices. But, as William Keegan reports in the Guardian Unlimited, even that pillar of monetary policy may be "tottering"...

Central banks these days do tend to conduct monetary policy with reference to interest rates rather than monetary growth. But choosing a target for an overnight bank lending rate -- like the federal funds rate -- is implicitly about choosing a path for money growth. Once an interest path is chosen, money growth follows automatically, and is in that sense invisible (or, mathematically, redundant). That does not, however, mean that the insights of the quantity theory are obsolete. That central bank practice has evolved toward a focus on a price (the short-term interest rate) rather than a quantity (money growth) says more about our confidence in the measurement of money than it does about our confidence in the theory that inflation has its roots in money growth (a theme that is expanded on, at length, in an essay in Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland's 2001 annual report.)

It is true that recent influential ideas about inflation and central banking have incorporated the existence of "cashless" economies, which would indeed move us outside of the reach of the quantity theory. But those ideas contemplate the control of inflation in a hypothetical world (asking, for example, whether rules that work well in a monetary economy might work equally well in a non-monetary economy). That alone does not invalidate quantity-theoretic reasoning. What is more, justifying some aspects of central bank behavior -- the desire to avoid sharp movements in interest rates, for example -- seems to require the existence of money, and in an entirely conventional way. Which is to say, in more or less the fashion handed down by Milton Friedman.

Up to the very end -- hat tip, again, to Mark Thoma -- Professor Friedman was explaining why money matters. How appropriate. Although many these days would be less enthusiastic than he about emphasizing a particular measure of money, his ideas about money are as vital to the core of monetary policy reasoning as they ever were.

The king is dead. Long live his kingdom.

Posted by Mark Thoma on November 20, 2006 at 12:24 AM in Economics, Monetary Policy | Submit to Digg | Add to Del.icio.us | Reddit This | Permalink

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Comments

The implications that a) Friedman won the Nobel for predicting stagflation, and b) such Keynesian critiques were original and unique to monetarism, are equally puzzling.

Posted by: Ben | Nov 20, 2006 1:44:13 AM

The thesis that inflation can be controled by targeting the money supply is just another side of the same coin.

Remember, Volcker was using the shift to targeting the money supply as cover for the extremely high interest rates that would be needed to bring down inflation. So when people complained about the high rates the Fed could claim it was not their fault, it was just the market reacting to the need to reduce money supply growth.

We could argue all year about what cut inflation under Volcker, slower money supply or higher rates. But
it really does not matter. It is a supply and demand formula with money being the supply and interest rates being the price of money. You could target either one, money supply or rates, but it would not matter and the consequences would be the same. Lower inflation required both slower money supply growth and higher rates. If you got one you would also get the other.

Moreover, monetary velocity, the other part of the monetarist equation is also inversely related to real interest rates with the key level being around 4% real interest rates. When real rates are abover 4% velocity contracts and when real rates are below 4% velocity expands.

Posted by: spencer | Nov 20, 2006 5:41:09 AM

Spencer...
just to be picky - what is special about 4% re velocity. When real rates are abover 4% velocity contracts and when real rates are below 4% velocity expands. Contracts or expands relative to what? The velocity at 4%? Rather circular isn't it?

Posted by: reason | Nov 20, 2006 6:01:39 AM

If the supply of goods and services increases, then to keep prices from falling, money supply and/or velocity must rise. The growth of supply in goods (e.g., Chinese/Japanese/Korean exports) and services (Indian software and services) from Asia has been so great that a very large increase in money supply has been needed just to prevent a precipitous fall in the general price level (esp. in the price of US labor).

Posted by: jm | Nov 20, 2006 6:08:28 AM

jm:

But if incomes are sticky downward then U.S. companies are more likely to layoff workers and the unemployment rate should rise. The present unemployment rate is relatively low.

This means that the large increase in the money supply has been more than adequate to keep unemployment low and prices from falling. I would argue that it has resulted in a bubble in real estate and possibly U.S. equities.

Posted by: Gavin | Nov 20, 2006 9:19:41 AM

I do not know why 4% real rates are special.

It is just that I have observed this rule;
first for M1 velocity in the 1930s and later
for MZM velocity since 1960.

It's just that the real world may not be as simple as some -- not Milton Friedman -- would have you believe.

Posted by: spencer | Nov 20, 2006 10:53:58 AM