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Warning: arguments over monetary policy are generally much more subtle than “hawks vs doves.” If you want a book that covers different views of monetary policy
by starwind 5y ago
Warning: arguments over monetary policy are generally much more subtle than “hawks vs doves.”
If you want a book that covers different views of monetary policy, you need a textbook that's likely to be math-heavy and assume a background in theory. Carl Walsh's Monetary Theory and Policy is good but hard.
If you want something readable, start with Friedman and Schwartz's The Great Contraction which deals with monetary issue around the Great Depression.
Barry Eichengreen did a good book with Globalizing Capital that deals with more recent times from a more Keynesian view. (I should say, Keynes himself was very readable and you can find seeds of Monetarism in the General Theory.)
The Austrians' economics is a lot more religious than rigorous (Hayek himself said he was wrong and Friedman was right about the Great Depression). If you want something well done and rigorous but very critical of the Fed through a libertarian lens, look to Allan Meltzer’s History of the Federal Reserve (the two volumes run about 1500 pages). You can probably sample chapters of it.
I never read his book, but Scott Sumner is one of the best economists in the market monetarist school of thought, and with its emphasis on nominal gdp targeting it very much cuts against the grain.
For other good, contemporary economists focusing on monetary policy: John Taylor, Stanley Fischer, and Ben Bernanke
- mancerayder 5y agoThank you!