Daily Archives: August 6, 2013

The Age of the Maestros Must End

By Dan Kervick

Matt Yglesias makes two very important points this morning in a post about the ongoing debate over Ben Bernanke’s successor as Fed Chair.  The first is that “a great big country like the United States should probably put its central bank in the hands of people with central banking experience.”  He elaborates:

One issue here is just that it turns out to be hard to guess what someone’s going to do based on outside writing. Bernanke is a great case in point where his conduct as Fed chair has been much more similar to his remarks in Fed meetings as a Fed governor than to his published writing as a Princeton professor. For better or for worse practical experience with the institution tempered his ideas.

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Some Thoughts on the Dual Mandate: Right Goals, Wrong Agency?

By Stephanie Kelton

The statutory objectives for monetary policy known as the “dual mandate” were imposed by Congress as part of the the Federal Reserve by Act of 1913.  The mandate charges the Federal Reserve with responsibility for achieving two broad macroeconomic goals: “maximum employment and stable prices.” Much has been made (especially by those on the left) of the benefits of having a dual mandate.  In contrast to the European Central Bank, which operates with a single mandate — price stability — the dual mandate is supposed to ensure a more balanced outcome in the public’s interest.

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