Progress and confusion: the state of macroeconomic policy

Table of Contents:

1. A roadmap to "progress and confusion"

The “New Normal”

2. Debt supercycle not secular stagnation
3. Rethinking secular stagnation after seventeen months

Systemic risk and financial regulation

4. A note from the session on systemic risk and financial regulation
5. A comparative analysis of finacial sector health in the United States, Europe, and Asia
6. Rethinking financial regulation : how confusions have prevented progress
7. Systemic risk and financial regulation : where do we stand?
8. Shadow banking as a source of systemic risk

Macroprudential policies : Gathering Evidence

9. Macroprudential policy regimes : definition and institutional implications
10. Macroprudential tools, their limits and their connection with monetary policy
11. A simple cost-benefit analysis of using monetary policy for financial-stability purposes

Monetary policy in the future

12. Introduction to the monetary policy section
13. Monetary policy in the future
14. A monetary policy for the future
15. The credit surface and monetary policy
16. Remarks on the future of monetary policy

Fiscal policy in the future


17. Fiscal policy for the twenty-first century : testing the limits of the tax state? 18. The future of fiscal policy
19. What future for rules-based fiscal policy?
20. On the proper size of the public sector and the level of public debt in the twenty-first century

Capital flows, exchange rate management, and capital controls

21. Floating exchange rates, self-oriented policies, and limits to economic integration
22. Some lessons of the global financial crisis from an EME and a Brazilian perspective
23. Capital inflows, exchange rate management and capital controls
The international monetary and financial system

24. The international monetary and financial system : eliminating the blind spot
25. Prospects and challenges for financial and macroeconomic policy coordination
26. Global safe asset shortage : the role of central banks
27. Going bust for growth

Conclusion

28. Rethinking macro policy : progress or confusion?

List of Contributors
Index.

What will economic policy look like once the global financial crisis is finally over? Will it resume the pre-crisis consensus, or will it be forced to contend with a post-crisis “new normal”? Have we made progress in addressing these issues, or does confusion remain? In April of 2015, the International Monetary Fund gathered leading economists, both academics and policymakers, to address the shape of future macroeconomic policy. This book is the result, with prominent figures—including Ben Bernanke, Lawrence Summers, and Paul Volcker—offering essays that address topics that range from the measurement of systemic risk to foreign exchange intervention.

The chapters address whether we have entered a “new normal” of low growth, negative real rates, and deflationary pressures, with contributors taking opposing views; whether new financial regulation has stemmed systemic risk; the effectiveness of macro prudential tools; monetary policy, the choice of inflation targets, and the responsibilities of central banks; fiscal policy, stimulus, and debt stabilization; the volatility of capital flows; and the international monetary and financial system, including the role of international policy coordination.

In light of these discussions, is there progress or confusion regarding the future of macroeconomic policy? In the final chapter, volume editor Olivier Blanchard answers; both. Many lessons have been learned; but, as the chapters of the book reveal, there is no clear agreement on several key issues.

(https://mitpress.mit.edu/progressandconfusion)