Reflections on Allan Meltzer's Contributions to Monetary Economics and Public Policy
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REFLECTIONS ON ALLAN MELTZER’S CONTRIBUTIONS TO MONETARY ECONOMICS AND PUBLIC POLICY January 4, 2018 Kimpton Hotel Palomar Philadelphia Sponsored by the Institute for Humane Studies & the Mercatus Center at George Mason University elcome to the Policy Research Seminar on Reflection’s on Allan Meltzer’s WContributions to Monetary Economics and Public Policy, sponsored by the Institute for Humane Studies (IHS) and the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. You have been invited to this event because we hold your work in high esteem for both its scholarly contributions and for its practical application to our understanding of a free society. We encourage you to join in what promises to be an active and lively conversation, and to draw from your own research and experiences throughout the discussion. One of the primary goals for this program is to help facilitate scholarly collaboration among the faculty, graduate students, policy experts, and IHS and Mercatus Center staff members in attendance. I hope you see this as a valuable opportunity to get to know dozens of like-minded scholars with similar research interests. We are hosting several world-class speakers who can share their experience and advice on how to flourish, as they have, in the world of monetary economics and public policy. We have found that some of the best conversations from our seminars occur spontaneously in the hallways and during meals and receptions, so please be present for scheduled events. Thank you again for joining us. We look forward to meeting each of you individually over the course of the seminar, and we hope you benefit as much from this seminar as we benefit from having you in attendance. Please don’t hesitate to let us know if we may do anything to improve your experience. Sincerely, Ashley Donohue Academic Talent Development, Director Institute for Humane Studies his full-day seminar is co-sponsored with the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and explores TProf. Allan Meltzer’s contributions to academia and public policy. His recent passing affords a moment of reflection on how the foundations of his research and thinking are relevant to our current Federal Reserve system and frequently changing monetary policies. Featured speakers include experts such as Nobel Laureate and Professor Robert Lucas Jr., and the President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, James Bullard. Founded in 1961 by Dr. F.A. “Baldy” Harper, the Institute for Humane Studies is the leading institute in higher education dedicated to championing classical liberal ideas and the scholars who advance them. Specifically, we facilitate the impact of the academic community both on and beyond college campuses—partnering with faculty to connect with students through campus programs, connecting scholars to opportunities to further their careers both inside and outside of the academy, and offering current and aspiring professors access to the foremost community of scholars working within the classical liberal tradition. IHS Policy Research Seminars IHS Policy Research Seminars seek to bridge the gap between academia and policy by encouraging the use of academic research to influence policy change. Seminars give an audience of advanced graduate students, policy experts, and faculty the chance to connect with like-minded individuals and help to facilitate connections with our partner organizations with the goal of producing future research, speaking and publishing opportunities. The Mercatus Center at George Mason University is the world’s premier university source for market-oriented ideas—bridging the gap between academic ideas and real-world problems. A university-based research center, the Mercatus Center advances knowledge about how markets work to improve people’s lives by training graduate students, conducting research, and applying economics to offer solutions to society’s most pressing problems. Our mission is to generate knowledge and understanding of the institutions that affect the freedom to prosper, and to find sustainable solutions that overcome the barriers preventing individuals from living free, prosperous, and peaceful lives. PROGRAM SCHEDULE Thursday, January 4th 8:00-9:00 AM | Breakfast and Registration Cret Room 9:00-9:15 AM | Welcome and Seminar Introduction Burnham Ballroom • Ashley Donohue, Institute for Humane Studies • Ben Klutsey, Mercatus Center at George Mason University 9:15-10:45 AM | Panel 1: Meltzer’s Contributions to the Monetary Transmission Mechanism Burnham Ballroom • Edward Nelson, Federal Reserve System • Peter Ireland, Boston College • Josh Hendrickson, University of Mississippi • David Beckworth, Mercatus Center at George Mason University Moderator 10:45-11:00 AM | Coffee Break Ballroom Foyer 11:00-12:30 PM | Panel 2: Meltzer’s Contributions to the History of the Federal Reserve Burnham Ballroom • Michael Bordo, Rutgers University • George Selgin, Cato Institute • Robert Hetzel, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond • Scott Sumner, Mercatus Center at George Mason University Moderator PROGRAM SCHEDULE 12:30-1:30 PM | Lunch Cret Room 1:30-2:20 PM | Keynote Address Burnham Ballroom • James Bullard, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 2:20-2:45 PM | Coffee Break Ballroom Foyer 2:45-4:15 PM | Meltzer’s Contributions to Public Policy Thought Burnham Ballroom • Gerald O’Driscoll Jr., Cato Institute • Robert Lucas Jr., University of Chicago • Charles Plosser, The Hoover Institution, Stanford University • George Selgin, Cato Institute Moderator 4:15-7:00 PM | Afternoon Break 7:00-7:45 PM | Dinner Burnham Ballroom 7:45-8:00 PM | Opportunities at the Institute for Humane Studies Burnham Ballroom • Ashley Donohue, Institute for Humane Studies 8:00-10:00 PM | Reception Burnham Ballroom SPEAKER BIOS DAVID BECKWORTH [email protected] David Beckworth is a Senior Research Fellow with the Program on Monetary Policy at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and a former international economist at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. He is the author of Boom and Bust Banking: The Causes and Cures of the Great Recession and formerly taught at Western Kentucky University. His research focuses on monetary policy, and his work has been cited by the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, The New York Times, Bloomberg Businessweek, and The Economist. He has advised congressional staff- ers on monetary policy and has written for Barron’s, Investor’s Business Daily, the New Republic, The Atlantic, and National Review. MICHAEL BORDO [email protected] Michael D. Bordo is Professor of Economics and Director of the Center for Monetary and Financial History at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey. He has held previous academic positions at the University of South Carolina and Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. He has been a visiting professor at the University of California Los Angeles, Carnegie Mellon University, Princeton University, Harvard University, Cambridge University where he was Pitt Professor of American History and Institutions, and a Visiting Scholar at the IMF, Federal Reserve Banks of St. Louis and Cleveland, the Federal Reserve Board of Governors the Bank of Canada, the Bank of England and the Bank for International Settlement. He also is a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, Massachusetts. He has a B.A. degree from McGill University, a M.Sc. (Econ) from the London School of Economics and he received his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in 1972. He has published many articles in leading journals and written ten books on monetary economics and monetary history. He is editor of a series of books for Cambridge University Press: Studies in Macroeconomic History. JAMES BULLARD [email protected] James “Jim” Bullard is the President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. He oversees the activities of the Eighth Federal Reserve District, including operations in the St. Louis headquarters and its branches in Little Rock, Ark., Louisville, Ky., and Memphis, Tenn. He also participates on the Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee, or FOMC, which meets eight times each year to set the direction of U.S. monetary policy. Bullard is a noted economist and scholar, and his positions are founded on research-based thinking and an intellectual openness to new theories and explanations. He is often an early voice for change. In addition, he makes public outreach and dialogue a priority to help build a more transparent and accessible Fed. He regu- larly engages with many audiences—including academics, policy makers, business and labor organizations, charities, students and media, among other public groups—to discuss monetary policy and the U.S. economy and to help further the regional Reserve banks’ role of being the voice of Main Street. Jim Bullard is active in the community. He is an honorary professor of economics at Washington University in St. Louis, where he also sits on the advisory council of the economics department. In addition, he is a mem- ber of the Greater St. Louis Financial Forum, the St. Louis Regional Chamber’s board of directors, the University of Missouri-St. Louis (UMSL) Chancellor’s Council and the St. Cloud State University School of Public Affairs advisory council. He is also chairman of the United Way’s U.S.A. Board of Trustees and a member of the United Way Worldwide board. He is also a member of the Central Bank Research Association’s senior council. A native of Forest Lake, Minn., Bullard received his doctorate in economics from Indiana University in Bloom- ington. He holds Bachelor of Science degrees in economics and in quantitative methods and information systems from St. Cloud State University in St. Cloud, Minn. JOSH HENDRICKSON [email protected] Josh Hendrickson is an associate professor at the University of Mississippi. His work primarily centers around issues related to monetary theory, history, and policy. He has written extensively on nominal GDP targeting and the political economy of bitcoin.