Category Archives: monetary policy

Demonetization on Five Continents

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(Dec. 29, 2016) Several countries are undergoing “demonetization” or currency reforms in which the government recalls bills of particular denomination that are circulation and replaces them with new notes. Some of these initiatives are going better than others.

India is still reeling from the consequences of Prime Minister Modi’s announcement on November 8 that 500- and 1000-rupee denomination bills, which constitute 86 % of the cash in circulation, could no longer be used and that residents have until the end of December to turn them in. read more

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What Will the Trump Presidency Look Like?

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(Nov. 12, 2016) We unexpectedly find ourselves in uncharted territory, in so many ways. The United States has never before had a president without either political or military experience. And Donald Trump is especially unpredictable: he has so often said things that conflict with other things he has said. So it is hard to know what he will do.

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The Gold Standard and Trump

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(Oct. 29. 2016)  My preceding post, “The Fed and Inequality,” observed that populists have historically favored easy money and low interest rates.  I mentioned William Jennings Bryan’s campaigns for the presidency in the 1890s as well as the supply-siders in the early 1980s who blamed the failure of Reaganomics to produce sufficient growth on Paul Volcker’s efforts to fight inflation with tight monetary policy.

An interesting dimension concerns gold. 

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