Governor Leigh Pemberton’s 1992 lecture concluded with a message for the LSE: “in a world of price
stability you might not think of inviting the Governor of the Bank of England to address you”. Had price
stability guaranteed financial stability, and had I achieved my long-held ambition of being boring, that might
have been true.
Unfortunately, it is not how things have worked out!
What I have tried to show tonight is that the case for price stability is as strong today as it was twenty years
ago – both in theory and in practice. The clarity and simplicity of the inflation target helps to anchor inflation
expectations on the target. We forget the lessons of the 1970s and 1980s at our peril. In the end, the
essence of central banking is to maintain confidence in, and the value of, paper money.
It is far too soon to bury inflation targeting. Together with central bank independence, it played a key role in
bringing price stability to the UK. As the Times reported 20 years ago, “the pound's firmer tone, and softer
German money market rates, could tempt the Chancellor to shave half a point off base rates to coincide with
the Prime Minister's speech at Brighton today”. The party conference season is no longer a time for
speculation about changes in interest rates. No doubt we shall learn a great deal about the appropriate
allocation of responsibilities to monetary policy, on the one hand, and macro-prudential policy, on the other,over the next twenty years. But we should not throw out the baby with the bathwater. Low and stable
inflation is a pre-requisite for economic success.
Much of what I have said is, I hope, a call to arms for economists, and especially younger economists, to
rethink the foundations of our macroeconomic theories. Not to abandon rigorous modelling – after all, in the
words of last year’s Nobel Prize winner Tom Sargent “it takes a model to beat a model” – but to recognise
that in our present models the way we think of human behaviour in the face of irreducible uncertainty is
seriously incomplete.
Ideas matter far more than is usually recognised in the public discussion of monetary policy which
concentrates too much on personalities. Keynes and Stamp both knew that. In February 1929,
Josiah Stamp went to Paris as a member of the Young Committee to assess whether the reparations debts
run up by Germany could be repaid – the similarities with the present situation in Europe are too poignant to
dwell on. In a letter to Keynes, Stamp compared these international meetings to a conjuror trying to pull a
rabbit out of the hat:
“It is still a madhouse, in a way – but all are mad in a very genteel way, the main occupation being elaborate
proofs, from different angles, of sanity. One half sit round a hat saying with Coué reiteration: there is a rabbit
– there is. The other half try to make a noise like a succulent lettuce. There is a general conviction that the
more eminent the conjurors convened, the more certainty is there of the existence of the rabbit”.33
The only escape from madness is the power of ideas. Today, we understand less than we would wish about
how the economy works. The challenge of trying to understand more, and of developing those new ideas,
belongs to you – the next generation of students and academics at the LSE and elsewhere. Go to it!
Governor Leigh Pemberton’s 1992 lecture concluded with a message for the LSE: “in a world of price stability you might not think of inviting the Governor of the Bank of England to address you”. Had price stability guaranteed financial stability, and had I achieved my long-held ambition of being boring, that might have been true. Unfortunately, it is not how things have worked out! What I have tried to show tonight is that the case for price stability is as strong today as it was twenty years ago – both in theory and in practice. The clarity and simplicity of the inflation target helps to anchor inflation expectations on the target. We forget the lessons of the 1970s and 1980s at our peril. In the end, the essence of central banking is to maintain confidence in, and the value of, paper money. It is far too soon to bury inflation targeting. Together with central bank independence, it played a key role in bringing price stability to the UK. As the Times reported 20 years ago, “the pound's firmer tone, and softer German money market rates, could tempt the Chancellor to shave half a point off base rates to coincide with the Prime Minister's speech at Brighton today”. The party conference season is no longer a time for speculation about changes in interest rates. No doubt we shall learn a great deal about the appropriate allocation of responsibilities to monetary policy, on the one hand, and macro-prudential policy, on the other,over the next twenty years. But we should not throw out the baby with the bathwater. Low and stable inflation is a pre-requisite for economic success.
Much of what I have said is, I hope, a call to arms for economists, and especially younger economists, to
rethink the foundations of our macroeconomic theories. Not to abandon rigorous modelling – after all, in the
words of last year’s Nobel Prize winner Tom Sargent “it takes a model to beat a model” – but to recognise
that in our present models the way we think of human behaviour in the face of irreducible uncertainty is
seriously incomplete.
Ideas matter far more than is usually recognised in the public discussion of monetary policy which
concentrates too much on personalities. Keynes and Stamp both knew that. In February 1929,
Josiah Stamp went to Paris as a member of the Young Committee to assess whether the reparations debts
run up by Germany could be repaid – the similarities with the present situation in Europe are too poignant to
dwell on. In a letter to Keynes, Stamp compared these international meetings to a conjuror trying to pull a
rabbit out of the hat:
“It is still a madhouse, in a way – but all are mad in a very genteel way, the main occupation being elaborate
proofs, from different angles, of sanity. One half sit round a hat saying with Coué reiteration: there is a rabbit
– there is. The other half try to make a noise like a succulent lettuce. There is a general conviction that the
more eminent the conjurors convened, the more certainty is there of the existence of the rabbit”.33
The only escape from madness is the power of ideas. Today, we understand less than we would wish about
how the economy works. The challenge of trying to understand more, and of developing those new ideas,
belongs to you – the next generation of students and academics at the LSE and elsewhere. Go to it!
การแปล กรุณารอสักครู่..

Governor Leigh Pemberton’s 1992 lecture concluded with a message for the LSE: “in a world of price
stability you might not think of inviting the Governor of the Bank of England to address you”. Had price
stability guaranteed financial stability, and had I achieved my long-held ambition of being boring, that might
have been true.
Unfortunately, it is not how things have worked out!
What I have tried to show tonight is that the case for price stability is as strong today as it was twenty years
ago – both in theory and in practice. The clarity and simplicity of the inflation target helps to anchor inflation
expectations on the target. We forget the lessons of the 1970s and 1980s at our peril. In the end, the
essence of central banking is to maintain confidence in, and the value of, paper money.
It is far too soon to bury inflation targeting. Together with central bank independence, it played a key role in
bringing price stability to the UK. As the Times reported 20 years ago, “the pound's firmer tone, and softer
German money market rates, could tempt the Chancellor to shave half a point off base rates to coincide with
the Prime Minister's speech at Brighton today”. The party conference season is no longer a time for
speculation about changes in interest rates. No doubt we shall learn a great deal about the appropriate
allocation of responsibilities to monetary policy, on the one hand, and macro-prudential policy, on the other,over the next twenty years. But we should not throw out the baby with the bathwater. Low and stable
inflation is a pre-requisite for economic success.
Much of what I have said is, I hope, a call to arms for economists, and especially younger economists, to
rethink the foundations of our macroeconomic theories. Not to abandon rigorous modelling – after all, in the
words of last year’s Nobel Prize winner Tom Sargent “it takes a model to beat a model” – but to recognise
that in our present models the way we think of human behaviour in the face of irreducible uncertainty is
seriously incomplete.
Ideas matter far more than is usually recognised in the public discussion of monetary policy which
concentrates too much on personalities. Keynes and Stamp both knew that. In February 1929,
Josiah Stamp went to Paris as a member of the Young Committee to assess whether the reparations debts
run up by Germany could be repaid – the similarities with the present situation in Europe are too poignant to
dwell on. In a letter to Keynes, Stamp compared these international meetings to a conjuror trying to pull a
rabbit out of the hat:
“It is still a madhouse, in a way – but all are mad in a very genteel way, the main occupation being elaborate
proofs, from different angles, of sanity. One half sit round a hat saying with Coué reiteration: there is a rabbit
– there is. The other half try to make a noise like a succulent lettuce. There is a general conviction that the
more eminent the conjurors convened, the more certainty is there of the existence of the rabbit”.33
The only escape from madness is the power of ideas. Today, we understand less than we would wish about
how the economy works. The challenge of trying to understand more, and of developing those new ideas,
belongs to you – the next generation of students and academics at the LSE and elsewhere. Go to it!
การแปล กรุณารอสักครู่..
