Digital history of macroeconomics

Aurélien Goutsmedt and Alexandre Truc have put up digital history of macroeconomics:

The Mapping Macroeconomics project is an online interactive platform displaying bibliometric data on a large set of macroeconomic articles. It aims at offering a better understanding of the history of macroeconomics through the navigation between the different bibliometric networks.

The point of departure of the project is the observation of an exponential increase in the number of articles published in academic journals in economics since the 1970s. This phenomenon makes it harder for historians of economics to properly assess the trends in the transformation of economics, the main topics researched, the most influential authors and ideas, etc. We consider that developing collective quantitative tools could help historians to confront this challenge. The opportunities that a quantitative history brings are particularly useful to the recent history of macroeconomics.

Practicing macroeconomists are eager to tell narratives of the evolution of their field that serve the purpose of intervening on current debates, by giving credit to particular authors and weight to specific ideas. Historians who go into this area find plenty of accounts by macroeconomists and have to handle the vast increase in the macroeconomic literature since the last quarter of the past century. The Mapping Macroeconomics platform aims at helping historians to empirically check macroeconomists’ narratives on the discipline, to explore interesting patterns on the evolution of macroeconomics, and eventually to write new histories of macroeconomics.

Looks interesting…

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Monetary Policy and Credit Card Spending

Francesco Grigoli and Damiano Sandri in this paper analyse the impact of monetary policy on credit card spending:

We analyze the impact of monetary policy on consumer spending using credit card data. Because of their high frequency, these data improve identification and allow for a precise characterization of the transmission lags. We find that shocks to short-term interest rates affect spending much more rapidly than shocks to longer-term interest rates. We also detect significant asymmetries. While interest rate rises are contractionary, interest rate cuts are unable to lift spending. Finally, by exploiting the disaggregation of credit card data, we uncover considerable heterogeneity in the effects of monetary policy across spending categories and a stronger impact on higher-income users.

An Evaluation of Dr. Ambedkar’s Economic Thought on Agriculture in the context of Globalization

Prof Rakshit Bagde of Mansaramji Padole Arts College Ganeshapur Bhandara evaluates Ambedkar’s economic thought on agriculture:

Bharat Ratna Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar: an eminent socio-economic thinker and epoch-maker shaped the economic destiny of India by introducing many tenets of the State Socialism into the Constitution of free India. He was a post-graduate of Columbia University (U.S.) and obtained his doctoral degree in economics from there in 1917 and D.Sc. degree in 1921 from the renowned London School of Economics. Abroad, he shared his thoughts with distinguished economists like Prof. Seligman and Prof. Cannon. He had a short stint with Sydenham College Bombay as a lecturer in economics during 1918-20.

His economic thoughts are spread over a plethora of pages, speeches, and statements made in various capacities. He was the first to co-relate the evils of untouchability and the caste system with the economic system. It was to his credit that financial and economic provisions were entered into the Law of the Land i.e. Constitution of India.

Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar was much more than a mere economic thinker. He was a philosopher, social thinker, a fantastic scholar, a leader, a political activist, an apostle, and a savior of millions – a true architect of an egalitarian society. Such a person can only be a revolutionary at heart. Above all these attributes, he was the noble visionary aspiring for a peaceful and prosperous world without malice.

Agriculture is the backbone of the Indian economy many problems like land reforms, fragmentation, and subdivision of land were discussed by Dr. Ambedkar threadbare. The problems are still current and are further aggravated by the density of population and urbanization. The size of landholding is getting diminished day by day causing innumerable misery to the farmers. The marginalization of land is marginalizing the landholders on large scale. Dr. Ambedkar foresaw all this and emphasized the inability of consolidation and other means of increasing the size. He was aware that any system of equitable distribution of land and land reforms would be inadequate for the singular reason that there is no ample land relative to population. Therefore he felt that collectivism was the only answer for problems of agriculture. This was in tune with the welfare State visualized then.

Collective farming would reap the advantages of large-scale production which would increase labor productivity. He was for the growth and development of agro-based industries and the industrialization of the rural areas. This is his view would enhance the employment of workers and the land-less. Dr. Ambedkar proposed collective farming in a slightly different way from communes. The proprietary rights would remain with respective farmers but they would not be permitted to cultivate lands unless they join with adjoining farms. In case it was not done then the government should interfere and acquire lands after paying appropriate compensation. The land so acquired should be divided into equal holdings and should be given to the villagers for cultivation. Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar justified the government interference saying that non-interference of government would mean private autocracy.

While discussing the problem of subdivision he emphasized that the absence of the law of primogeniture (the property should rest with firstborn) led to non-economic holding. He defined his concept of economic holding on the basis of a family unit. The land should be adequate enough to provide employment to the whole family and must be able to provide subsistence to the family. His was scientific and hence the holistic approach in a sense.

Thorstein Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class—Evolution from leisure class to luxury belief class

Rob Henderson (PhD candidate at the University of Cambridge) in this article updates Veblen’s leisure class:

Thorstein Veblen’s famous “leisure class” has evolved into the “luxury belief class.” Veblen, an economist and sociologist, made his observations about social class in the late nineteenth century. He compiled his observations in his classic work, The Theory of the Leisure Class. A key idea is that because we can’t be certain of the financial standing of other people, a good way to size up their means is to see whether they can afford to waste money on goods and leisure. This explains why status symbols are so often difficult to obtain and costly to purchase. These include goods such as delicate and restrictive clothing like tuxedos and evening gowns, or expensive and time-consuming hobbies like golf or beagling. Such goods and leisurely activities could only be purchased or performed by those who did not live the life of a manual laborer and could spend time learning something with no practical utility. Veblen even goes so far as to say, “The chief use of servants is the evidence they afford of the master’s ability to pay.” For Veblen, Butlers are status symbols, too.

….

A couple of winters ago it was common to see students at Yale and Harvard wearing Canada Goose jackets. Is it necessary to spend $900 to stay warm in New England? No. But kids weren’t spending their parents’ money just for the warmth. They were spending the equivalent of the typical American’s weekly income ($865) for the logo. Likewise, are students spending $250,000 at prestigious universities for the education? Maybe. But they are also spending it for the logo.

This is not to say that elite colleges don’t educate their students, or that Canada Goose jackets don’t keep their wearers warm. But top universities are also crucial for induction into the luxury belief class. Take vocabulary. Your typical middle-class American could not tell you what “heteronormative” or “cisgender” means. But if you visit Harvard, you’ll find plenty of rich 19-year-olds who will eagerly explain them to you. When someone uses the phrase “cultural appropriation,” what they are really saying is “I was educated at a top college.” Consider the Veblen quote, “Refined tastes, manners, habits of life are a useful evidence of gentility, because good breeding requires time, application and expense, and can therefore not be compassed by those whose time and energy are taken up with work.” Only the affluent can afford to learn strange vocabulary because ordinary people have real problems to worry about.

What would Hayek make of behavioral economics?

Interesting debate between Cass Sunstein and Mario Rizzo on whether Hayekian ideas and behavioral economics go hand in hand:

F.A. Hayek was one of the 20th century’s most influential economic, political, and social philosophers—and a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. Cass Sunstein, currently at Harvard Law School and formerly the administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs under President Obama, invokes Hayekian concepts for a theory of “libertarian paternalism,” which uses behavioral economics to justify a range of public policy interventions to frame individual choices in ways intended to nudge them toward better outcomes. Mario Rizzo, an economist at New York University, disputes the Hayekian justification for this vision. In May, they participated in a Cato policy forum to discuss these differences as well as which is the better interpretation of Hayek’s insights.

Hirschman’s economics of possibility: democracy thrives not on strong opinions but on doubt and flexibility

Prof Michele Alacevich University of Bologna remembers Hirschman, one of the most gifted economics thinkers.

Hirschman’s focus on processes of policymaking, despite the diverse arguments and the different methodological approaches of his various books, rests on his vision of wide participation and intellectual openness. He summarised this combination of doubt, intellectual openness, moral values and pragmatism in the concept of possibilism. Trying to explain the regularities of social dynamics is obviously an important task.

Yet he cherished the opposite, more uncertain and unpredictable type of endeavour: ‘to underline the multiplicity and creative disorder of the human adventure, to bring out the uniqueness of a certain occurrence, and to perceive an entirely new way of turning a historical corner’. This possibilism is perhaps the most eloquent explanation of why Hirschman is an inexhaustible resource for those who are interested in understanding how our democracies can survive and thrive, or at least muddle through.

Alacevich has recently written a biography of the great economist.

 

World War I and the Restructuring of International Business

Ted Fertik & Naomi R. Lamoreaux in this new NBER paper:

This paper considers the effect of the First World War on large-scale businesses in Second-Industrial-Revolution industries like steel, electricity, and chemicals. For firms in the nations of the Entente, we argue, the war mainly interrupted long-term trends that resumed in the aftermath of the conflict. For Germany, however, the war and its subsequent territorial settlements had a disruptive impact on the economic geography of key industries.

The global restructuring that resulted from the collapse of the Habsburg, Romanov, and Ottoman empires and Germany’s loss of its colonial possessions set up a new kind of international rivalry as German firms sought to regain their dominance by contracting with emerging nations in the European periphery and the Global South to build industrial capacity, forcing Britain and the now capital-rich United States to compete for this business or see their influence in these areas decline.

The end result of this rivalry was the construction of massive steel works in Brazil and other industrializing countries around the world. These investments would provide the foundation for the import-substituting policies of the post-World War II era.

 

Swedish monetary policy experiences after the global financial crisis: What lessons?

Nice speech by Sweden Central Bank Governor Stefan Ingves:

Sweden is one of those rare central banks which leaned against the wind and kept interest rates higher than desired to lower financial imbalances. But lately due to low inflation, it is off the lean against the wind policies:

How “deep” parameters of central banking of 1990s are a distant memory now

Interesting speech by Mary Daly, President of San Francisco Fed. She gives the speech on 30 years of inflation targeting in NZ.

She joined the Fed in 1990s and there were three main parameters around mon policy. All those have changed now:

To understand the new environment we face, we first have to look back to the past. And here I will use the United States as an example.

When I started working at the Federal Reserve in 1996, I learned three important facts—the “deep” parameters of central banking. First, the potential growth rate of the U.S. economy averages around 3.5%. Second, the real neutral rate of interest—or r-star—changes over time but is well-bounded away from zero, mostly in the range of 2% to 3% or higher (Congressional Budget Office 2019, Laubach and Williams 2003, FRB New York 2019, Christensen and Rudebusch 2019). Third, unemployment and inflation are strongly linked through the Phillips curve.

Fast forward to 2019. These facts—these deep parameters—feel like a distant memory. As of June, participants of the Federal Open Market Committee put longer-run potential growth in the United States at about 1.9%. Estimates of the long-run neutral rate of interest were penciled in at just 0.5% (Board of Governors 2019b). As for the Phillips curve, most arguments today center around whether it’s dead or just gravely ill. Either way, the relationship between unemployment and inflation has become very difficult to spot.

Although the numbers may be a little different, the changes I’ve described are not unique to the United States. Global demographic shifts and lower productivity gains are tempering growth and reducing long-run interest rates in many countries (Holston, Laubach, and Williams 2017). And a number of central banks are finding that inflation is less responsive to labor market improvements than in the past.

These trends have important implications for monetary policy. Lower r-star and the zero lower bound mean we’ll have less room to maneuver when the next downturn occurs. One of the lessons learned from the financial crisis and its aftermath is that alternative tools like forward guidance and the balance sheet can be effective at stimulating economies. However, they’re still imperfect substitutes for the most effective tool at our disposal: traditional interest rate adjustments. And the fainter signal coming from the Phillips curve means we have less direct, real-time feedback about how monetary policy is playing out in the economy.

In other words, the jobs of central banks have gotten harder.

Hmm..

Don’t blame economics, blame public policy..

Prof Ricardo Hausmann in this piece tries to rescue economics and economists:

It is now customary to blame economics or economists for many of the world’s ills. Critics hold economic theories responsible for rising inequality, a dearth of good jobs, financial fragility, and low growth, among other things. But although criticism may spur economists to greater efforts, the concentrated onslaught against the profession has unintentionally diverted attention from a discipline that should shoulder more of the blame: public policy…

Economics and public policy are closely related, but they are not the same, and should not be seen as such. Economics is to public policy what physics is to engineering, or biology to medicine. While physics is fundamental to the design of rockets that can use energy to defy gravity, Isaac Newton was not responsible for the Challenger space shuttle disaster. Nor was biochemistry to blame for Michael Jackson’s death.

Although engineering schools teach physics and medical schools teach biology, these professional disciplines have grown separate from their underlying sciences in many respects. In fact, by developing their own criteria of excellence, curricula, journals, and career paths, engineering and medicine have become distinct species.

Public-policy schools, by contrast, have not undergone an equivalent transformation. Many of them do not even hire their own faculty, but instead use professors from foundational sciences such as economics, psychology, sociology, or political science. The public-policy school at my own university, Harvard, does have a large faculty of its own – but it mostly recruits freshly minted PhDs in the foundational sciences, and promotes them on the basis of their publications in the leading journals of those sciences, not in public policy.

Policy experience before achieving professorial tenure is discouraged and rare. And even tenured faculty have surprisingly limited engagement with the world, owing to prevailing hiring practices and a fear that engaging externally might entail reputational risks for the university. To compensate for this, public-policy schools hire professors of practice, such as me, who have acquired prior policy experience elsewhere.

Hmm..

Monetary transmission in Australia: Fairly efficient even at lower interest rates

Australian central bank has cut policy rates in June and July meetings by 25 bps. The policy rate is at 1% currently.

In this speech, Christopher Kent, Assistant Governor (Financial Markets) speaks about how interest rates are being lowered everywhere including Australia. The transmission in Aus has been quite efficient with most %age of rate cuts passed on to people:

Do closer political ties with a global superpower improve sovereign borrowing conditions?

Everything humans create is basically gamed.

Gene Ambrocio and Iftekhar Hasan of Bank of Finland in this paper look at how friends can be bought at world stage for an exchange:

Fiscal Money Can Make or Break the Euro

As European central bank controls all monetary operations, the constrained European governments are trying to figure ways to create money on their own.

Italian government is planning to issue short-term treasury bills or mini-BOTs which has led concerns over creation of parallel currency and give government avenues to spend.

Yanis Varoufakis, former FInance Minister of Greece in this piece explains how in his tenure he had proposed a variant of this proposal. But it was aimed at saving the Euro:

My idea was to establish a tax-backed digital payment system to create fiscal space in eurozone countries that needed it, like Greece and Italy. The Italian plan, by contrast, would use a parallel payment system to break up the eurozone.

Under my proposal, each tax file number, belonging to individuals or firms, would be automatically provided with a Treasury Account (TA) and a PIN number with which to transfer funds from one TA to another, or back to the state.

One way TAs would be credited was by paying arrears into them. Taxpayers owed money by the state could opt for part or all of those arrears to be paid into their TA immediately, instead of waiting for months to be paid normally. That way, multiple arrears could be eliminated at once, thus liberating liquidity across the economy.

For example, suppose Company A is owed €1 million ($1.1 million) by the state, while owing €30,000 to an employee and another €500,000 to Company B. Suppose also that the employee and Company B owe, respectively, €10,000 and €200,000 in taxes to the state. If the €1 million is credited by the state to Company A’s TA, and Company A pays the employee and Company B via the system, the latter will be able to settle their tax arrears. At least €740,000 in arrears will have been eliminated in one fell swoop.

Individuals or firms could also acquire TA credits by purchasing them directly, via web-banking, from the state. The state would make it worth their while by offering buyers significant tax discounts (a €1 credit purchased today could extinguish taxes of, say, €1.10 a year from now). In essence, a new dis-intermediated (middlemen-free) public debt market would emerge, allowing the state to borrow small, medium, and large sums from the private sector in exchange for tax discounts.

Implications?

Indeed, if my parallel, euro-denominated system had been operational in June 2015, when the European Central Bank closed down Greece’s banks to blackmail its people and government into accepting the third bailout loan, two outcomes would have been possible. First, transactions would have shifted massively from the banking system to our TA-based public payment system, thus reducing substantially the ECB’s leverage. Second, it would be common knowledge that, at the push of a button, the government could convert the new euro-denominated payment system into a new currency.

In our case, the idea was to keep Greece viably within the eurozone by using the additional bargaining power afforded by the parallel payment system to negotiate the deep debt restructuring needed to revive economic growth and ensure long-term fiscal sustainability. As long as our creditors saw that our redenomination costs were lowered, while our demands for debt restructuring were sensible, they would think twice before threatening us with Grexit. Joint action by the ECB and my ministry would allow the parallel system to be portrayed as a new pillar of the euro, thus quashing any financial panic. By ending the popular association of the euro with permanent stagnation, the parallel system would be the single currency’s friend.

What about Italy?

This brings us to Italy. There are two technical differences between the system I designed and Italy’s planned mini-Treasury bills (or mini-BOTs). First, mini-BOTs will be printed on paper, something I opposed, to avoid a grey market. Our total supply of digital credits would have been managed by a distributed ledger, to ensure full transparency and prevent the inflationary overproduction of credits. Second, the mini-BOTs will be interest-free, perpetual bonds, without future tax discounts.

But the real difference between the Italian scheme and mine remains political. The parallel payment system I proposed was designed to use the reality of lower eurozone exit costs to create new fiscal space and help civilize the monetary union in the process. Italy’s system is the first step toward a parallel currency by which to bring about the eurozone’s end.

European politics around moneys is never boring.

 

Real effective exchange rates (REER) should incorporate Global Value Chains

Nice article by Nikhil Patel and Shang Jin Wei:

Standard calculations of the REER by most central banks and statistical agencies assume that countries export only final goods. But GVCs spread the different stages of production among different countries. They can do so thanks to technological improvements, lower trade barriers, and the closer integration of emerging markets into the global economy. Ignoring this reality can lead to substantial mismeasurement of the REER, resulting in questionable policy inferences.

To see how the standard approach could be wrong, consider a hypothetical value chain for the production of smartphones. Suppose Japan manufactures the components and ships them to China, where the phones are assembled and exported globally as finished products. Traditional REER models would assume that Japan exports final goods to China, and that the two countries are competitors. A depreciation of the Japanese yen, therefore, would help Japan’s competitiveness and hurt that of China.

In this case, however, a weaker yen would lower the price of Japanese components, which may lead to lower prices and increased demand for Chinese phones – leading to an improvementin China’s competitiveness. This example shows that the standard REER calculation is getting not only the magnitude wrong, but also the direction of change.

Hmmm…

They also explain how adjusting for GVCs lead to Chinese Renminbi showing appreciation trend compared to the oft cited depreciation trend…

Interview of Deirdre McCloskey

This interview of Prof McCloskey appeared a month earlier:

She says liberalism should not be adopted selectively but comprehensively:

The Fed should buy recession insurance…

Brad DeLong in this article says Fed should buy recession insurance:

…if the next downturn is looming, North Atlantic central banks do not have the policy room to fight it effectively. Should a recession arrive, the US Federal Reserve would ideally be able to cut interest rates by five percentage points, as is customary in such situations. But with short-term safe interest rates currently at 2.4%, it cannot. And with euro and yen interest rates still around zero, the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan would be unable to help much, either. 

Looking ahead, therefore, the big risk is not that inflation will start spiraling upward, with the Fed unable to raise interest rates fast enough to stabilize the economy. Rather, it is the downside risk that a year from now, the North Atlantic will be in recession, governments will not provide enough fiscal stimulus, and the Fed won’t be able to reduce interest rates enough – leaving it nearly helpless to even try to stabilize the economy.

The logical response to such an asymmetric risk is – or ought to be – to buy insurance to cover it. Worryingly, however, the Fed is not taking out any policy insurance at all against a possible recession, despite having at least three possible options from which to choose.

Three options are: raise policy rates today, cut interest rates today to try to compensate for its inability to reduce rates enough in a future downturn and leave interest rates unchanged for now. It is doing the third option but is not explaining what happens if a recession occurs.

Reflections of an economics textbook author: Greg Mankiw

Nice essay by Prof Greg Mankiw. He recently stepped down as the instructor of Harvard’s EC10 course (introductory economics). This is a huge moment in economic teaching as people believe this would give an opportunity for other textbooks such as Core economics to get their dues.

In the essay, Mankiw takes one through what led him to write a book on economics. Also how should one write write a book and the changes brought to the books world by digital technologies:

In this essay I reflect on textbook writing after three decades participating in the activity. I address the following questions: What perspective should textbooks take? What is the best approach to teaching microeconomics? What is the best approach to teaching macroeconomics? How does the content of the introductory course evolve? How much material should textbooks include? Are textbooks too expensive? How is digital technology changing the market for
textbooks? Who should become a textbook author?

Some more from Prof Tim Taylor on Mankiw’s essay and his own experiences..

How Israel lowered concentration in banks’ credit portfolio and cleaned up its banking system (lessons for India?)

Interesting remarks by Dr. Hedva Ber, Supervisor of Banks at Bank of Israel:

The supervisor points how from 1990-2010, Israel’s credit market was highly concentrated in hands of few companies. Since then, they have cleaned up the system taking stringent steps involving firing several key people:

Linking Reserve Bank of New Zealand Maori heritage: A case of central bank communications gone too far?

Last week, RBNZ released this long document linking Maori heritage with the central bank and the economy:

Te Pūtea Matua is the Māori name for the Reserve Bank of New Zealand. This article presents a broad picture of Te Pūtea Matua’s heritage, role, and interdependencies both within the Bank and economy-wide.

“The Reserve Bank team want to tell our story of how we fit together, and show respect to past, present, and future New Zealanders. Understanding our origin is especially important in times of change, which we are experiencing at present – including our legislation being reviewed,” Reserve Bank Governor Adrian Orr says.

“The establishment of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand in 1934 meant the people and government of New Zealand were better able to manage the economy independent of foreign banks’ credit cycles. In that sense, and drawing on Māori mythology, the Reserve Bank became the Tāne Mahuta of New Zealand’s financial system, allowing the sun to shine in on the New Zealand economy,” Mr Orr says.

“Te Pūtea Matua’s activities include issuing currency to the public, and maintaining price and institutional stability in New Zealand’s money exchange systems. Te Pūtea Matua’s roots are in its legislation. The money exchange systems and functions are its trunk, allowing the money – the sap – to flow throughout the system. The branches are the regulated financial institutions grafted onto the trunk, for their legitimacy and access to the Bank’s money and banking system.

“These functions are inter-related and allow Te Pūtea Matua to protect, nurture, and grow New Zealand’s wider financial ecosystem for the greater benefit of all New Zealanders.”

Mr Orr says the Reserve Bank is standing in good stead for the future, but will continue to grow and adapt to its environment. “We face challenges and changes that are driven by technology, economic development, global connectedness, and broader government, public and employee expectations. This is an exciting and challenging time for the Reserve Bank,” he says.

“We aim for this document to be a living story that evolves as people add their insights and share their knowledge and perspectives.”

Phew.

Croaking Cassandra blog has torn apart this publication:

Tomorrow will mark six months since Adrian Orr became the most powerful unelected person in New Zealand, as Governor of the Reserve Bank.  Six months on we’ve had not a single serious and substantive speech on the policy areas he is responsible for, and where he exercises a huge amount of barely-trammelled power.  No speech on monetary policy, no speech on banking regulation, and nothing either on the less prominent things the Governor is responsible for –  such as, for example, insurance prudential supervision, a New Zealand insurer having failed, regulated by the Reserve Bank just before the Governor took office.  He hasn’t substantively and openly engaged with, or responded to, the damning survey results on the Bank’s performance as a financial system regulator.

Instead, we’ve heard the Governor on almost everything else.  There was infrastructure, climate change (repeatedly), the failings of capitalism, geopolitics, women in economics, and of course bank “conduct” (playing distraction from his institution’s own failings, by trying to butt into a field for which the Bank has no statutory responsibility).    There have been lots of words, but not much sign of in-depth reflection or distinctive insights, and even less sign of doing him well, and being open about, the jobs Parliament has actually given the Bank.   Throw in some considerable complacency about monetary policy and it should be a pretty disquieting picture.

Some of it is probably just the Governor’s well-known propensity to talk.  Some of it might even be an understandable (if misguided in application) desire to lift the esprit-de-corps at the Reserve Bank after the demoralising Wheeler years.  And a lot seems to be about winning the turf battles, ensuring that in the reviews of the Reserve Bank Act that the government has underway as much as possible of the Bank’s powers are kept, in effect, under the Governor’s control, and that the existing powers and functions of the Reserve Bank are all kept in the Reserve Bank.  Part of that seems to be about openly subscribing what should be a non-partisan agency to every trendy left-wing cause that is going (and which, presumably, the Governor believes in personally.) A power play in other words –  and, with a weak government that probably doesn’t care much, quite likely to succeed,  somewhat to the detriment of New Zealand.

The latest example was the release on Monday of a rather curious 36 page document called The Journey of Te Putea Matua: our Tane Mahuta.   Te Putea Matua is the Maori name the Reserve Bank of New Zealand has taken upon itself (such being the way these days with public sector agencies).  It isn’t clear who “our” is in this context, although it seems the Governor  – himself with no apparent Maori ancestry – wants us New Zealanders to identify with some Maori tree god that –  data suggest –  no one believes in, and to think of the Reserve Bank as akin to a localised tree god.  Frankly, it seems weird.  These days, most New Zealanders don’t claim allegiance to any deity, but of those of us who do most –  Christian, Muslim, or Jewish, of European, Maori or any other ancestry – choose to worship a God with rather more all-encompassing claims.

But the Governor seems dead keen on championing Maori belief systems from centuries past.    In an official document of our central bank we read

A core pillar of the evolving Māori belief system is a tale of the earth mother (Papatūānuku) and the sky father (Ranginui) who needed separating to allow the
sun to shine in. Tāne Mahuta – the god of the forest and birds – managed this task after some false starts and help from his family. The sunlight allowed life to flourish in Tāne Mahuta’s garden.

This quote appears twice in the document.

All very interesting perhaps in some cultural studies course, but what does it have to do with macroeconomic management or financial stability?  Well, according to the Governor (in a radio interview on this yesterday) before there was a Reserve Bank “darkness was on our economy”.  The Reserve Bank was the god of the forest, and let the sun shine in.  Perhaps it is just my own culture, but the imagery that sprang to mind was that of people who walked in darkness having seen a great light.   But imagine the uproar if a Governor had been using Judeo-Christian imagery in an official publication.

Looks like a case of central bank communications and linking with history gone too far…

Profile of Raj Chetty: Data evangelist

IMF’s F&D Sep-2018 issue profiles Raj Chetty.

In some cases, Chetty’s work strikes out in new and unexpected directions. In others, it confirms earlier studies by sociologists or specialists in early-childhood education. Either way, what gives it such impact is his innovative use of massive data sets, which has put him on the cutting edge of a trend that’s transforming the field.

“Big data has been revolutionary in applied microeconomics,” says Emmanuel Saez, a frequent collaborator who teaches at the University of California at Berkeley. “Raj has been in the vanguard of this movement.”

For Chetty, big data promises to bring economics closer to the certainties of the natural sciences. The hope is that economists will have a greater impact on public policy by presenting evidence that’s convincing enough to bridge the ideological divide, especially at the local government level, where partisan rancor is less intense.

“He zealously preserves his ideologically neutral stand,” says David Grusky, a Stanford sociology professor who has worked with Chetty. “He wants the data to speak, and let the chips fall where they may.”

Grusky describes Chetty as a relentless investigator who roams widely through relevant literature, regardless of the discipline, and tests every conceivable hypothesis as he works toward a conclusion. “He considers it an abject failure if there’s ever a question coming from an audience that entails an analysis he hasn’t already undertaken.”

Speaking to audiences, on campus and off, is something Chetty does frequently in his role as evangelist for big data. He cultivates contacts with journalists and makes his articles available online, along with easy-to-understand summaries, which has helped attract widespread coverage of his work in publications including the Atlantic, the Economist, and the New York Times.

“If what we’re doing is important for the world, we should make it accessible to the world,” Chetty explains.

Hmm..