What Have We Learned Since October 1979?
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Walter Heller Oral History Interview II, 12/21/71, by David G
LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON LIBRARY ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION LBJ Library 2313 Red River Street Austin, Texas 78705 http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/johnson/archives.hom/biopage.asp WALTER HELLER ORAL HISTORY, INTERVIEW II PREFERRED CITATION For Internet Copy: Transcript, Walter Heller Oral History Interview II, 12/21/71, by David G. McComb, Internet Copy, LBJ Library. For Electronic Copy on Compact Disc from the LBJ Library: Transcript, Walter Heller Oral History Interview II, 12/21/71, by David G. McComb, Electronic Copy, LBJ Library. GENERAL SERVICES ADNINISTRATION NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS SERVICE LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON LIBRARY Legal Agreement Pertaining to the Oral History Interviews of Walter W. Heller In accordance with the provisions of Chapter 21 of Title 44, United States Code and subject to the terms and conditions hereinafter· set forth, I, Walter W. Heller of Minneapolis, Minnesota do hereby give, donate and convey to the United States of America all my rights, title and interest in the tape record- ings and transcripts of the personal interviews conducted on February 20, 1970 and December 21,1971 in Minneapolis, Minnesota and prepared for deposit in the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library. This assignment is subject to the following terms and conditions: (1) The edited transcripts shall be available for use by researchers as soon as they have been deposited in the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library. (2) The tape recordings shall not be available to researchers. (3) During my lifetime I retain all copyright in the material given to the United States by the terms of this instrument. Thereafter the copyright in the edited transcripts shall pass to the United States Government. -
Kermit Gordon and Walter W
Kermit Gordon and Walter W. Heller Oral History Interview –JFK #2, 9/14/1972 Administrative Information Creator: Kermit Gordon and Walter W. Heller Interviewer: Larry J. Hackman and Joseph A. Pechman Date of Interview: September 14, 1972 Place of Interview: Washington, D.C. Length: 50 pp. Biographical Note Gordon, Kermit; Economist, Member, Council of Economic Advisers (1961-1962). Heller, Walter W.; Economist, Chairman, Council of Economic Advisers (1961-1964). Gordon and Heller discuss wage-price guideposts, the steel crises in 1962 and 1963, John F. Kennedy’s [JFK] relationship with the business community, and their efforts regarding tax reform and a tax cut bill, among other issues. Access Restrictions No restrictions. Usage Restrictions Copyright of these materials have passed to the United States Government upon the death of the interviewees. Users of these materials are advised to determine the copyright status of any document from which they wish to publish. Copyright The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. Under certain conditions specified in the law, libraries and archives are authorized to furnish a photocopy or other reproduction. One of these specified conditions is that the photocopy or reproduction is not to be “used for any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research.” If a user makes a request for, or later uses, a photocopy or reproduction for purposes in excesses of “fair use,” that user may be liable for copyright infringement. This institution reserves the right to refuse to accept a copying order if, in its judgment, fulfillment of the order would involve violation of copyright law. -
Jerome H Powell: Challenges for Monetary Policy
For release on delivery 10:00 a.m. EDT (8:00 a.m. local time) August 23, 2019 Challenges for Monetary Policy Remarks by Jerome H. Powell Chair Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System at “Challenges for Monetary Policy,” a symposium sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Jackson Hole, Wyoming August 23, 2019 This year’s symposium topic is “Challenges for Monetary Policy,” and for the Federal Reserve those challenges flow from our mandate to foster maximum employment and price stability. From this perspective, our economy is now in a favorable place, and I will describe how we are working to sustain these conditions in the face of significant risks we have been monitoring. The current U.S. expansion has entered its 11th year and is now the longest on record. 1 The unemployment rate has fallen steadily throughout the expansion and has been near half-century lows since early 2018. But that rate alone does not fully capture the benefits of this historically strong job market. Labor force participation by people in their prime working years has been rising. While unemployment for minorities generally remains higher than for the workforce as a whole, the rate for African Americans, at 6 percent, is the lowest since the government began tracking it in 1972. For the past few years, wages have been increasing the most for people at the lower end of the wage scale. People who live and work in low- and middle-income communities tell us that this job market is the best anyone can recall. -
3/1980 Report
MARCH 1980 SURVEY March 28, 1980 Surveyso fConsume rAttitude s Richard T.Curtin , Director §> CONSUMER SENTIMENT FALLS TO NEW RECORD LOW LEVEL **In the March 1980 survey, the Index of Consumer Sentiment was 56.5,dow n more than 10 Index-points from February 1980 (66.9) and March 1979 (68.4), and represents the lowest level recorded in more than a quarter-century. At no time have consumers been more pessimistic about their ownpersona l financial situation or about prospects for the economy as a whole. Importantly, the major portion of these declines were recorded prior to President Carter's latest inflation message just 10 percent of the interviews were conducted after Carter's speech. **Among families with incomes of $15,000 and over, the Index of Consumer Senti ment was 51.3 in March 1980,dow n from 60.2 in February 1980, and 65.2i n March 1979. TheMarc h 1980 Index figure of 51.3 is below the prior record low of 53.6 recorded in February 1975. **New record low levels recorded in March 1980include : *Near1y half (48 percent) of all families reported in March 1980 that they were worse off financially than a year earlier, twice the propor tion whoreporte d an improved financial situation (24 percent). *Three-in-four respondents (76 percent) expected bad times financially for the economy as a whole during the next 12 months, while just 14 percent expected improvement. ^Interest rates were expected to increase during the next 12 months by 71 percent of all families in March 1980an d the highest rates of expected inflation were recorded during early 1980, with consumers expecting inflation to average 12% during the next 12 months. -
Development of Sirococcus Shoot Blight Following Thinning In
This file was created by scanning the printed publication. Text errors identified by the software have been corrected; however, some errors may remain. United States Department of Development of Sirococcus Agriculture Forest Service Shoot Blight Following Thinning in Pacific Northwest Forest and Range Western Hemlock Regeneration Experiment Station Research Note Charles G. Shaw III, Thomas H. Laurent, and PNW-387 May 1981 Spencer Israelson Abstract Shoot mortality from Sirococcus strobilinus Preuss. and other causes was recorded by crown position from April 1978 through October 1979 in young- growth western hemlock [Tsuga heterophylla (Raf.) Sarg.] crop trees released in a 1977 thinning at Thomas Bay, Alaska. All study trees contained some infected shoots, but no terminal leaders were killed by shoot blight. On individual trees, the number of shoots killed by S. strobilinus between April 1978 and October 1979 was significantly correlated with the level of shoot blight mortality present in April 1978. Disease occurrence was highest in the lower crown, but differences in the level of shoot mortality between lower, middle, and upper crown locations were not significant. Disease occurrence during 1978 and 1979 was markedly lower than that in 1976 and 1977. After thinning, shoot blight appears to be causing little damage to hemlock crop trees; suggesting that thinning operations can proceed at Thomas Bay with confidence that the selected crop trees will suffer little, if any, damage from the disease. Keywords: Shoot blight, diseases (plant), western hemlock, Tsuga heterophylla Alaska (Thomas Bay). Introduction Western hemlock [Tsuga heterophylla (Raf.) Sarg.] regeneration in southeast Alaska is commonly attacked by the shoot blight fungus, Sirococcus strobilinus Preuss. -
Reforming the Rules That Govern the Fed
Reforming the Rules That Govern the Fed Charles W. Calomiris Abstract The Fed has achieved both of its central objectives – price stability and financial stability – in only about a quarter of its years of operation. What reforms would be likely to improve that performance? This article focuses on two problems that have plagued the Fed throughout its history: adherence to bad ideas, especially to influence from intellectual fads in macroeconomics, which have produced major policy errors; and politicization of the Fed, which leads it to pursue objectives other than price stability and financial stability. Several reforms are proposed to the structure and governance of the Fed, and its policy mandates, which would promote greater diversity of thought and independence from political pressures, which in turn would insulate the Fed from political pressures and make its thinking less susceptible to intellectual fads. Taking Stock The Fed is celebrating its 100th birthday. The celebration has been muted, sometimes even somber, and for good reason: the Fed has achieved both of its central objectives – price stability and financial stability – in only about a quarter of its years of operation. There is one Fed leader, however, whose record receives universal accolades. In one Fed cartoon prepared for high school students, Paul Volcker is lovingly portrayed as a superhero wearing a red cape. Few would object to that characterization. Over the 100-year history of Fed monetary policy, Mr. Volcker’s combination of integrity, judgment, and courage stand alone. Integrity because, prior to his appointment, he leveled with President Carter about his intention to attack inflation aggressively. -
The Transformation of Economic Analysis at the Federal Reserve During the 1960S
The Transformation of Economic Analysis at the Federal Reserve during the 1960s by Juan Acosta and Beatrice Cherrier CHOPE Working Paper No. 2019-04 January 2019 The transformation of economic analysis at the Federal Reserve during the 1960s Juan Acosta (Université de Lille) and Beatrice Cherrier (CNRS-THEMA, University of Cergy Pontoise) November 2018 Abstract: In this paper, we build on data on Fed officials, oral history repositories, and hitherto under-researched archival sources to unpack the torturous path toward crafting an institutional and intellectual space for postwar economic analysis within the Federal Reserve. We show that growing attention to new macroeconomic research was a reaction to both mounting external criticisms against the Fed’s decision- making process and a process internal to the discipline whereby institutionalism was displaced by neoclassical theory and econometrics. We argue that the rise of the number of PhD economists working at the Fed is a symptom rather than a cause of this transformation. Key to our story are a handful of economists from the Board of Governors’ Division of Research and Statistics (DRS) who paradoxically did not always held a PhD but envisioned their role as going beyond mere data accumulation and got involved in large-scale macroeconometric model building. We conclude that the divide between PhD and non-PhD economists may not be fully relevant to understand both the shift in the type of economics practiced at the Fed and the uses of this knowledge in the decision making-process. Equally important was the rift between different styles of economic analysis. 1 I. -
What Have We Learned Since October 1979? by Alan S. Blinder Princeton
What Have We Learned since October 1979? by Alan S. Blinder Princeton University CEPS Working Paper No. 105 April 2005 “What Have We Learned since October 1979?” by Alan S. Blinder Princeton University∗ My good friend Ben Bernanke is always a hard act to follow. When I drafted these remarks, I was concerned that Ben would take all the best points and cover them extremely well, leaving only some crumbs for Ben McCallum and me to pick up. But his decision to concentrate on one issue—central bank credibility—leaves me plenty to talk about. Because Ben was so young in 1979, I’d like to begin by emphasizing that Paul Volcker re-taught the world something it seemed to have forgotten at the time: that tight monetary policy can bring inflation down at substantial, but not devastating, cost. It seems strange to harbor contrary thoughts today, but back then many people believed that 10% inflation was so deeply ingrained in the U.S. economy that we might to doomed to, say, 6-10% inflation for a very long time. For example, Otto Eckstein (1981, pp. 3-4) wrote in a well-known 1981 book that “To bring the core inflation rate down significantly through fiscal and monetary policies alone would require a prolonged deep recession bordering on depression, with the average unemployment rate held above 10%.” More concretely, he estimated that it would require 10 point-years of unemployment to bring the core inflation rate down a single percentage point,1 which is about five times more than called for by the “Brookings rule of thumb.”2 In the event, the Volcker disinflation followed the Brookings rule of thumb rather well. -
Alphachatterbox: the Life and Times of Paul Volcker Cardiff Garcia First of All, Thanks for Talking to Us
Alphachatterbox: the life and times of Paul Volcker Cardiff Garcia First of all, thanks for talking to us. Appreciate it. Paul Volcker You're welcome. We'll see how it goes. Cardiff Garcia Here's where I want to start. When you were studying economics, those were pretty exciting times for the profession. Hayek and Keynes were still debating, Bretton Woods had been established in the mid1940s, central bank independence was still kind of a contentious topic. Who were some of the early influences on the way you think about monetary economics? Who were some of the thinkers that influenced your points of view? Paul Volcker I'm supposed to have some thinkers that influenced me. I don't remember any standing out in particular. For some reason, I took the advanced economic theory course when I was either a freshman or a sophomore at Princeton from a guy named Oskar Morgenstern, who was part of the Jewish intellectuals that moved to the United States before the war. And he was Austrian, so you got a full exposure to the Austrian school of economics. To the best of my memory, and maybe my memory is wrong, I could sit through all those economics classes in Princeton, I don't think the word Keynes was ever mentioned. Cardiff Garcia The word...? [overtalking] Paul Volcker Keynes. John Maynard Keynes. Because the money and banking professor, a guy by the name of [Friedrich] Lutz, another Austrian émigré... they were not Keynesian. And in those days, most professors I guess were not yet Keynesian, or at least it was controversial. -
The 22 September 1979 Vela Incident—Part II: Radionu- Clide and Hydroacoustic Evidence for a Nuclear Explosion”
SCIENCE & GLOBAL SECURITY ,VOL.,NO.,– https://doi.org/./.. The September Vela Incident: The Detected Double-Flash Christopher M. Wrighta and Lars-Erik De Geer b aUNSW Canberra, School of Physical, Environmental and Mathematical Sciences, Research Group on Science & Security, The Australian Defence Force Academy, Canberra BC, Australia; b(Retired) FOI, Swedish Defense Research Agency, and the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organisation, Flädervägen , Upplands Väsby, Sweden ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY On 22 September 1979 two optical sensors on U.S. satellite Vela Received March 6911 detected a double-flash of light that appeared characteristic Accepted October of an atmospheric nuclear explosion conducted over the south- ern Atlantic or Indian Ocean. It became known as the Vela Inci- dent, Event 747, or Alert 747. An anomaly between the amplitude of the two signals during the second pulse led a U.S. govern- ment expert panel established to assess the event to conclude in mid-1980 that a more likely explanation was the impact of a small meteoroid on the satellite, the debris from which reflected sunlight into the sensors’ field of view. No model was presented to support the contention, and a similar anomaly—known as background modulation—was a given for the second pulse of all confirmed explosions detected by Vela, though beginning later. Nonetheless, this event has remained the subject of intense debate. This article reviews the evidence and presents an updated analysis of the original Vela signal based on recently declassi- fied literature and on modern knowledge of interplanetary dust and hyper velocity impact. Given the geometry of the satellite, and that the bulk of the surface comprised solar panels, much of the debris from any collision would be carried away from the sensors’ field of view. -
SEPTEMBER, 1979 W Ill We Let Mr
IBLICATION OF THE INTERNATIONAL WOMEN PILOTS ASSOCIATION SEPTEMBER, 1979 W ill We Let Mr. Bond Kill Aviation?? By Louise Sacchi Until now aviation has always been a areas of the aviation community. monies that Mr. Bond wants for the fragmented industry--airline pilots, The Pilots’ Lobby is composed principally implementation of the NPRM. The Senate corporate pilots, charter pilots, owner of Henry Pflanz who is an ATR. FAA has already thrown this appropriation out of pilots, agricultural pilots, sports pilots, Examiner with 10,000 hrs. He left his their version. There is also HR 3480 which military pilots, air traffic controllers -each position as staff aide to the House Aviation says that the FAA may not change the has seen their needs from a different Subcommittee of the Public Works and criteria for any positive control airspace prospective. Transportation Committee to start it from what it was in 1973. Mr. I.anghorne Bond and his N PRM 78- because he felt so strongly about the However, we must not underestimate Mr. 19 has changed all that. Now. all segments of situation. The other chief member is Allan Bond! He has had “informal" meetings held the aviation community have joined Landolt. a former Navy pilot who holds around the country to tell us what his new together in opposition. All pilots of Commercial & Instrument with 3,500 hrs. TCAs and TRSAs will be like, and on July whatever group and the controllers agree Allan was head of the Illinois Dept. 20 promulgated another NPRM 79-SO-36 that this multiplication of positive Aeronautics for some years and more for the new and vastly expanded TCA at controlled airspace is extremely hazardous recently the Administrator for General Atlanta. -
What Have We Learned Since October 1979? (Central Bank Articles And
Ben S Bernanke: Panel discussion: what have we learned since October 1979? Remarks by Mr Ben S Bernanke, Member of the Board of Governors of the US Federal Reserve System, to the Conference on Reflections on Monetary Policy 25 Years after October 1979, Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis, St Louis, Missouri, 8 October 2004. The references for the speech can be found on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System’s website. * * * The question asked of this panel is, “What have we learned since October 1979?” The evidence suggests that we have learned quite a bit. Most notably, monetary policy-makers, political leaders, and the public have been persuaded by two decades of experience that low and stable inflation has very substantial economic benefits. This consensus marks a considerable change from the views held by many economists at the time that Paul Volcker became Fed Chairman. In 1979, most economists would have agreed that, in principle, low inflation promotes economic growth and efficiency in the long run. However, many also believed that, in the range of inflation rates typically experienced by industrial countries, the benefits of low inflation are probably small - particularly when set against the short-run costs of a major disinflation, as the United States faced at that time. Indeed, some economists would have held that low-inflation policies would likely prove counterproductive even in the long run, if an increased focus on inflation inhibited monetary policy-makers from responding adequately to fluctuations in economic activity and employment. As it turned out, the low-inflation era of the past two decades has seen not only significant improvements in economic growth and productivity but also a marked reduction in economic volatility, both in the United States and abroad, a phenomenon that has been dubbed “the Great Moderation.” Recessions have become less frequent and milder, and quarter-to-quarter volatility in output and employment has declined significantly as well.