Loathe as I am to piddle on Scott’s victory parade, I think some perspective is needed. NGDP targeting is catching on, it certainly has supporters within the UK Government like Vince Cable and his staff and in the commenteriat. Likewise, it is gaining ground with Jeffrey Frankel, A professor at Harvard and in Japan and with Paul Krugman and yada yada yada…things are looking up for this obscure policy, which is a good thing.
Yet this optimism doesn’t appear to be buoying markets. If NGDP targeting has been gaining popularity you’d like to see some sign of it in the stock markets, yet the last three months have been awful.
There’s an awful lot of red pixels. Of course inferring anything from market data is very difficult, that is after all the point of markets, to process information. Events in the real world of central banking are likely to dominate discussions of NGDP targeting. But, were monetary policy regime change to be likely you would expect to see some optimism in the numbers, and these are very pessimistic numbers indeed.
Scott should be happy with his progress so far, he has undoubtedly helped put NGDP targeting and monetary easing back onto the policy agenda, when it might have been ignored. However, he is premature in saying the future is bright when all signs suggest it is very likely quite dim.
Filed under: Economics, CAC, FTSE, NGDP Targeting, NIKKEI, S&P, Scott Sumner, Vince Cable
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