Jason Furman
Professor of Practice at Harvard. Teaches Ec 10, some tweets might be educational. Also Senior Fellow @PIIE. Was Chair of President Obama's CEA.
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@TheStalwart The unemployment rate was high after the fed funds rate was cut to zero in 2008 and 2020. Does that mean the Fed funds rate does not affect unemployment? Of course not...
At some point there should be a serious debate about the utility of forward guidance for *tightening* monetary policy. There is a strong case for forward guidance for easing when...
The Cleveland Fed trimmed mean CPI is out & it is ugly. It was even higher than core CPI for May. For the first time this cycle it is running higher than core for the last 12 mont...
What does today's report inflation report mean for households? Different ways to look at it depending on: (1) time period; (2) baseline; (3) what you're looking at; and (4) who you...
What are the arguments for using monetary policy vs. fiscal policy for stabilization? In theory they can accomplish the same thing (as noted by @pmichaillat among others in discuss...
The headline inflation numbers are dreadful. Strip away some special factors & they're merely bad. Headline CPI: 1.0% (12.3% annual rate) Core CPI: 0.6% (7.8% annual rate) Easing...
Some people objected to this by saying that the monopoly power of businesses helped shape the govt power that benefited the businesses. I agree that capitalism needs to be saved f...
In the last 4 months core goods inflation has nearly disappeared. But core services has picked upβleaving core inflation roughly unchanged (because core services have 2.7X the weig...
In 2015 there was a policy obsession with "long termism." That issue has fortunately faded--as it should have because it never made much sense as a diagnosis of the problems in our...
A facile argument I see a lot: "Inflation is up everywhere therefore the American Rescue Plan couldn't have added to US inflation." You can make an analogous (& equally facile) ar...
Headline US & Euro area inflation rates have converged. But, the underlying dynamics of the inflation in the 2 economies is different. More painful in Europe. More persistent in t...
Ways in which monetary policy became highly asymmetric (some individually defensible but collectively not, many since abandoned): 1. SINGLE MANDATE. Required maximum employment be...