Karl Brunner and Monetarism

by Moser, Thomas; Savioz, Marcel

• ISBN13: 9780262046916
• ISBN10: 0262046911
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2022-03-15
• Publisher: The MIT Press

Summary

Economists consider the legacy of Karl Brunner’s monetarism and its influence on current debates over monetary policy.
 

Monetarism emerged in the 1950s and 1960s as a school of economic thought that questioned certain tenets of Keynesianism. Emphasizing the monetary nature of inflation and the responsibility of central banks for price stability, monetarism held sway in the inflation-plagued 1970s, but saw its influence begin to decline in the 1980s. Although Milton Friedman is the economist most closely associated with the development of monetarism, it was Karl Brunner (1916–1989) who introduced the term into the current vocabulary of economics and shaped its meaning. In this volume, leading economists—many of them Brunner’s friends and former colleagues—consider the influence of Brunner’s monetarism on current debates over monetary policy.
 
Some contributors were participants in debates between Keynesians and monetarists; others analyze specific aspects of monetarism as theorized by Brunner and his close collaborator Allan Meltzer, or address its influence on US and European monetary policy. Others take the opportunity to examine Brunner-Meltzer monetarism through the lens of contemporary macroeconomics and monetary models. The book grows out of a symposium that marked the 100th anniversary of Brunner’s birth.
 
Contributors
Ernst Baltensperger, Michael D. Bordo, Pierrick Clerc, Alex Cukierman, Michel De Vroey, James Forder, Benjamin M. Friedman, Kevin D. Hoover, Thomas J. Jordan, David Laidler, Allan H. Meltzer, Thomas Moser, Edward Nelson, Juan Pablo Nicolini, Charles I. Plosser, Kenneth Rogoff, Marcel Savioz, Jürgen von Hagen, Stephen Williamson
 
 

Author Biography

Thomas Moser is Alternate Member of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank. Marcel Savioz is former Head of Research Coordination and Economic Education at the Swiss National Bank.

Table of Contents

Foreword vii
Thomas J. Jordan
1 Introduction: Why Karl Brunner Matters 1
Thomas Moser and Marcel Savioz
I A Tribute to Karl Brunner
2 Karl Brunner, Scholar: An Appreciation 19
Allan H. Meltzer
3 Karl Brunner and the Heritage of Monetarism 47
Ernst Baltensperger
4 Intellectual Origins of the Financial Crisis 65
Benjamin M. Friedman
5 A Tribute to Karl Brunner 81
Charles I. Plosser
6 Rethinking Central Bank Design 89
Kenneth Rogoff
II Impact on the Monetary Policy Debate
7 Karl Brunner's Monetarist Views in the Historical Context 129
Jurgen von Hagen
8 Karl Brunner and UK Monetary Debate 137
Edward Nelson
9 Karl Brunner and Allan Meltzer: From Monetary Policy to Monetary History to Monetary Rules 205
Michael D. Bordo
10 Karl Brunner and the Konstanz Seminar 229
III Karl Brunner and Allan Meltzer's Monetarism
11 Promoting and Defending Monetarism: Reflections on Four Papers by Karl Brunner 265
David Laidler
12 Karl Brunner's Philosophy of Science: Macroeconomics through the Lens of Logical Empiricism 293
Kevin D. Hoover
13 The Pervasive Influence of Armen Alchian on Karl Brunner's Monetarism 321
Pierrick Clerc
14 Brunner versus Friedman: Diverging Aspirations for the Monetarist Revolution 339
Pierrick Clerc and Michel De Vroey
15 Karl Brunner's Monetarist Revolution 355
James Forder
IV Today's Legacy of Karl Brunner
16 Implications of the Permanent-Transitory Confusion for New Keynesian Modeling, Inflation Forecasts, and the Postcrisis Era 373
Alex Cukierman 
17 Karl Brunner's Contributions to the Theory of the Money Supply 401
Juan Pablo Nicolini
18 Monetarism, New Monetarism, and the Legacy of Karl Brunner 421
Stephen Williamson
V Appendix 
Karl Brunner's Curriculum Vitae 445
Contributors 461
Index 463