Friday, December 4, 2009

Does the world need more monetary ease?


My view is that the Fed should explicitly target a return of nominal expenditure to the trend growth path of the Great Moderation, with a slight modification--3% nominal growth starting from third quarter 2008 and forward. The target should be about $16.1 trillion for the fourth quarter of 2010, about 11% higher than the third quarter of 2009.

How to achieve this? First, make the commitment. Second, stop paying interest on reserve balances at the Fed. And finally, make a commitment to significant quantitative easing.

On Free Exchange, a post describes a specific proposal by Joseph Gagnon of the Peterson Institute to implement significant quantitative easing.
Namely: buy an additional $2 trillion in government bonds, with an average maturity of 7 years. That would be in addition to the $1.75 trillion of Treasury and mortgage-related debt it has already almost finished buying.

Gagnon predicts that the effects would be:
the additional $2 trillion would lower Treasury yields about 0.75 percentage points. That, he reckons, would lower private borrowing rates, boost stock prices 13%, and lower the dollar by 5%. The combined stimulative impact would equal a 1.75 percentage point cut in the federal funds rate, and lift GDP by 3% after two years.

Not quite an 11% increase in nominal expenditure over the next year, but this is the sort of quantitative easing that I have been advocating. Gagnon's paper is here.

1 comment:

  1. Maybe we all need it, but I will be happy as long as I am able to predict things since I am a trader and in Forex, it is very risky when things get into complicated mode, it is impossible to predict anything, but with OctaFX broker, it is very easy for me due to their rebate program where I get 15 dollars from 1 lot size trade that’s completed, so it allows me to work without fear and keeps me relax.

    ReplyDelete