Monday, October 26, 2020

Yes, the Post Nixon Shock Syndrome, thanks for the confirmation

ABSTRACT We show that personal experiences of inflation strongly influence the hawkish or dovish leanings of central bankers. For all members of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) since 1951, we estimate an adaptive learning rule based on their lifetime inflation data. The resulting experience-based forecasts have significant predictive power for members' FOMC voting decisions, the hawkishness of the tone of their speeches, as well as the heterogeneity in their semi-annual inflation projections. Averaging over all FOMC members present at a meeting, inflation experiences also help to explain the federal funds target rate, over and above conventional Taylor rule components.

Since 1951, yes. But we have standardized the units for this.

The standard American Devaluation cycle is called the Nixon. The standard mental disease from a Nixon is the Nixon Post Shock Syndrome. Powell and Bernanke suffer the disease. The hysteria results in a 'This Time is different' fantasy, characterized by boneheads at MIT in the 70s. For example, Bernanke's famous,'We won't make that mistake again'. Or Powell poutings because Congress will not devalue.

So indeed, here at the anarchist site we have already worked these issues out and have perfectly good units. The solution is part of the Nixon cycle. It is revenue sharing coordinated with intelligent default. But we think this is too difficult for simple minded economists and I expect a Full Nixon, perhaps the catastrophic Double Nixon.   We should be a little braver and do the Half Nixon.

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