MONETARY POLICY
AP Photo
August 8, 2009
"How to Save an ‘Underwater’ Mortgage"
Op-Ed, Wall Street Journal
By Martin Feldstein, George F. Baker Professor of Economics at Harvard University
Borrowers should get relief now, and the banks should get a guarantee down the road.
July 29, 2009
"U.S. saving rate and dollar's future"
Op-Ed, The Korea Herald
By Martin Feldstein, George F. Baker Professor of Economics at Harvard University
The increase in the household saving rate reduces America's need for foreign funds to finance its business investment and residential construction. Taken by itself, today's $750 billion annual rate of household saving could replace that amount in capital inflows from the rest of the world.
AP Photo
June 28, 2009
"The Fed must reassure markets on inflation"
Op-Ed, Financial Times
By Martin Feldstein, George F. Baker Professor of Economics at Harvard University
"The simplest explanation for the higher 10-year rate is that many investors now expect inflation to rise. Although economic weakness and excess capacity are keeping current inflation low, the explosive rise of bank reserves created by Fed policy provides fuel for future inflation. The prospective decline of the dollar is also a potential source of inflation."
AP Photo
June 16, 2009
"Moral Hazard and the Crisis"
Op-Ed, Wall Street Journal
By Paul Volcker, International Council Member, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
We can, and we should, take steps to limit the need and possibility of official "bailouts." One approach would be to set clear policy limits to access to the "official safety net." Deposit insurance and central bank liquidity facilities are properly confined to deposit-taking institutions. It is, after all, those institutions that remain the backbone of the financial system. They provide basic essential services, meeting the needs of households, businesses and other institutions for credit, for a safe and liquid repository for their funds, and for both everyday and complex payment services.
AP Photo
June 15, 2009
"A New Financial Foundation"
Op-Ed, Washington Post
By Lawrence Summers, Charles W. Eliot University Professor (on leave) and Timothy Geithner
In developing its proposals, the administration has focused on five key problems in our existing regulatory regime -- problems that, we believe, played a direct role in producing or magnifying the current crisis.
June 2, 2009
"Has a recovery really begun in U.S.?"
Op-Ed, The Korea Herald
By Martin Feldstein, George F. Baker Professor of Economics at Harvard University
Although the American economy is continuing to decline, it is no longer falling as fast as it was at the beginning of the year or in the weeks after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008. In that sense, it is reasonable to say that the worst of the downturn is now probably behind us.
June 2009
"Back to the drawing board – regulation and macroeconomics after the crisis"
Policy Memo
By Sir John Gieve, Former Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School
The financial crisis of the last two years has now led to a profound world recession. It calls not just for emergency measures but for major changes in our longer term policy. We need to go back to the drawing board not just on financial regulation but on macroeconomic policy and on macroeconomics itself.
AP Photo
May 30, 2009
"A History Lesson for Economists in Thrall to Keynes"
Op-Ed, Financial Times
By Niall Ferguson, Member of the Board, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
It is a brave or foolhardy man who picks a fight with Mr Krugman, the most recent recipient of the Nobel Prize for Economics. Yet a cat may look at a king, and sometimes a historian can challenge an economist.
May 28, 2009
"Economic Crisis as Catalyst"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, The Dubai Initiative
Will the Arab world change course, and aim to really develop our vast human talent, free the minds and spirits of our youth, and move us towards a path of sustainable economic growth?
Photo by Martha Stewart
Summer 2009
"Economic Experts Suggest Causes, Next Steps for Economy"
Newsletter Article, Belfer Center Newsletter
By Sasha Talcott, Director of Communications and Outreach
Global leaders are facing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Though Lawrence Summers, on leave from Harvard Kennedy School and the Belfer Center to serve as director of the National Economic Council, predicted that the sense of "freefall" may end in the next several months, a recovery is likely to still be some distance away. Belfer Center experts offer their thoughts on where the situation is headed, and what policymakers should do now.
