NGDP Targeting and FOMC discussions

Curiously, at the end of 1982 at the high point of unemployment and the low point of growth, with inflation below 6%, the lowest level reached since 1974, the Fed discussed NGDP targeting:

MORRIS. I think we need a proxy–an independent intermediate target– for nominal GNP, or the closest thing we can come to as a proxy for nominal GNP, because that’s what the name of the game is supposed to be.



In closing the discussion Greenspan says:


From Bernanke´s Book as tweeted by Neil Irwin:

The FOMC had a long, serious discussion of NGDP targeting in 2011. And soundly rejected it.


Bernanke is really an inflation targeting freak! Note than in 1982 or 1992, no one said that by targeting NGDP the Fed “had suddenly decided it was willing to tolerate higher inflation, possibly for many years”. And just two months after this discussion, in January 2012, the Fed made the 2% target official policy!

Notice that in 1992, Greenspan said: “I’m basically arguing that we are really in a sense using [unintelligible] a nominal GDP goal…”

That said, I think it is worthwhile to check if Greenspan´s words were meaningful. The panel below pictures what went on in the NGDP, inflation and unemployment fronts from then to the end of his tenure.


The next panel shows how those things continued into the Bernanke/Yellen era.


One could say: “so what”? Inflation has remained low, even below the now official target, and unemployment has come down to a “comfortable” level. Bernanke has said the “Fed saved the economy – full employment without inflation is in sight”!

But, according to Bernanke:

Congress is largely responsible for the incomplete recovery from the 2008 financial crisisBen S. Bernanke, the former Federal Reserve chairman, writes in a memoir published on Monday.




By “incomplete recovery”, I´ll take it he´s referring to the “gaping hole” that´s observed in the NGDP chart (the distance to the trend NGDP level). But that cannot be attributed to Congress. It refers to what Friedman said almost 50 years ago: “A second thing monetary policy can do is provide a stable background for the economy.”

Bernanke gave a narrow interpretation to “stable background”, defining it in terms of “low and stable inflation”. If instead of low and stable inflation he had pursued a stable growth path for nominal spending (NGDP) he would have avoided the crash.

Inflation is low, unemployment is back (almost) at “full employment”. So what´s missing, allowing the gap to remain wide open?

As the charts show, the unemployment rate has a different “meaning” in the two periods!


And the last chart provides a “summary statistic”.


In the 2001 recession, NGDP growth slumped, but was brought back up so that the trend level of NGDP was regained.

In the 2007-09 recession, NGDP growth “caved” and has remained far below the trend growth, implying that there has been no “recovery”, with the economy remaining “depressed”!

And that´s no fault of Congress, but the result of Bernanke´s (and the Fed´s) obsession with inflation!