Articles for Section 4 Student Oral Presentations
links for 2010-08-25

Narayana Kocherlakota Confuses "Must Lead to" with "Is the Result of"

Admittedly, this is a hard thing to do--the kind of thing that requires a highly trained incapacity--but Narayana has managed to do it when he writes:

over the long run, a low fed funds rate must lead to consistent—but low—levels of deflation...

The claim is completely correct--but only when you replace "must lead to" with "is the result of."

It is the kind of thing that listening to Frank Fisher and Andreu Mas-Colell on stability of general equilibrium permanently inoculates one against.

Andy Harless and Mark Thoma and Nick Rowe are on the case at http://blog.andyharless.com/2010/08/do-umbrellas-cause-rain.html and http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2010/08/jaws-are-hardening.html and http://worthwhile.typepad.com/worthwhile_canadian_initi/2010/08/why-everyone-should-be-forced-to-take-intro-economics.html and http://worthwhile.typepad.com/worthwhile_canadian_initi/2010/08/what-standard-monetary-theory-says-about-the-relation-between-nominal-interest-rates-and-inflation.html

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