TY  - JOUR
AU  - McCallum,Bennett T.
TI  - Monetarist Rules in the Light of Recent Experience
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 1277
PY  - 1984
Y2  - February 1984
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w1277
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w1277.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Bennett T. McCallum
Tepper School of Business, Posner 256
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Tel: 412/268-2347
Fax: 412/268-6830
E-Mail: bm05@andrew.cmu.edu
AB  - Recent experience does not include a "monetarist experiment," as some have argued, but may slightly reinforce preexisting reasons for doubting that the best way of formulating monetarist policy prescriptions is in the form of a constant growth rule for the money stock.A more desirable rule would pertain to the monetary base, which is much more directly under Fed control. While a constant base growth rule might provide good macroeconomic performance, better results should be obtainable from a rule that at regular intervals adjusts the base growth rate upward or downward depending on whether nominal GNP is below or above a target path that specifies constant, non-inflationary growth for that variable. This type of rule is activist, to an extent, but is non-discretionary.The implied absence of policy-making flexibility is desirable for reasons explained in the literature on dynamic inconsistency.
ER  -