Category Archives: John Cochrane

Alan S. Blinder’s Reply to John H. Cochrane

“δὶς ἐς τὸν αὐτὸν ποταμὸν οὐκ ἂν ἐμβαίης.” (Heraclitus)

“No man ever steps in the same river twice.” (translation of Heraclitus)

Each of the 1970’s, 1980s and current 2020s has featured its own unique and nuanced combinations of circulating flows of products and money in phases of normative expansion, divergent boom; and corrective contraction. The flows of these decades are not all identical flows which anyone can simply reference to justify a present shallow opinion.

The Wall Street Journal of Monday, August 7, 2023 included Alan S. Blinder’s reply to John H. Cochrane. (See the two posts below on this Home Page.) Continue reading →

John H. Cochrane’s Article in The Wall Street Journal, Thursday 8/25/2022

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The Wall Street Journal of Thursday, 8/25/2022 featured John H. Cochrane’s commentary entitled “Nobody Knows How Interest Rates Affect Inflation.” We would say, “In order to understand how interest payments from Smith to Jones should circulate in order to achieve price stability, continuity, equilibrium and realization of the economy’s potential, one must have a unified theory explaining the whole, organic, dynamic, pretio-quantital,economic process. Then, within that theory one can know How Interest Rates Might Affect Inflation.” (Click here, and here) We would also assert that manipulation by the Fed of the rental price of money – the interest cost – can be counterproductive. (Continue reading)

Alberto Bisin Re Modern Monetary Theory

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On Saturday, 12/19/ 2020, John Cochrane‘s blog “Bisin on MMT Rhetoric” cited Alberto Bisin’s review of Stephanie Kelton’s Book “The Deficit Myth. “ Alberto Bisin contends, as do we, that So-Called Modern Monetary Theory, as espoused by Kelton and others, does not qualify as a theory. Cochrane quotes Bisin:

The book should be seen as a rhetorical exercise. Indeed, it is the core of MMT that appears as merely a rhetorical exercise. As such it is interesting, but not a theory in any meaningful sense I can make of the word. The T in MMT is more like a collection of interrelated statements floating in fluid arguments. Never is its logical structure expressed in a direct, clear way, from head to toe.

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