Tag Archives: Expectation

Monetarism

At the recent Karl Brunner Centenary event, Ernst Baltensperger characterized Monetarism as a set of five convictions:

  • Money matters (as accepted in the neoclassical synthesis)
  • Rules are preferred over discretion (in contrast to the views of Modigliani, Samuelson or Klein), but some flexibility is accepted
  • Inflation and inflation expectations are key (in contrast to traditional Keynesian views)—adaptive expectation formation, parallels to Phelps
  • Money growth targeting is useful—Brunner and Meltzer favored the monetary base, Friedman M1
  • Money, credit and the “details” of financial markets matter for the monetary transmission mechanism—Brunner and Meltzer pushed the credit view, parallels to Tobin

Baltensperger concluded that the macroeconomic mainstream has absorbed many of these convictions, as it has absorbed many pillars of Keynesian thought.