Books

2012
Friedman, Benjamin M. 2012. “Rules Versus Discretion at the Federal Reserve: On to the Second Century.” Journal of Macroeconomics 34 (3): 608-615. Text Abstract
Much of the experience of the U.S. Federal Reserve System, during the institution’s first hundred years, has revolved around controversies that fit squarely within the classical debate over rules versus discretion in economic policymaking. This paper looks back at the major episodes in this history since World War II, including the initial freeing of monetary policy from war-related interest-pegging, the Federal Reserve’s delayed but ultimately successful response to the inflation of the 1970s and early 1980s, the brief experiment with monetary aggregate targets, the extraordinary actions prompted by the 2007-9 financial crisis, and the current tentative exploration of inflation targeting. The paper concludes that the tension between the desire for rule-based policymaking and the practicalities that lead central bankers to preserve discretion in actual policy decisions does not admit of any easy, straightforward solution, and therefore that this tension is likely to persist into the Federal Reserve’s next century too.
Rethinking Economics in the Wake of the Financial Crisis
Friedman, Benjamin M. 2012. “Rethinking Economics in the Wake of the Financial Crisis.” What's the Use of Economics? Teaching the Dismal Science after the Crisis, edited by Diane Coyle. London: London Publishing Partnership.
Published May 27, 2012
Review of "The Next Convergence: The Future of Economic Growth in a Multispeed World" by Michael Spence. Review published April 5, 2012
Friedman, Benjamin M. 2012. “The Evolution of Thinking about Monetary Policy: Six Themes Over Four Decades.” Conference in Memory of Luis Angel Rojo. Madrid: Banco de Espana.
Download conference paper
Friedman, Benjamin M. 2012. “Monetary Policy, Fiscal Policy, and the Efficiency of Our Financial System: Lessons from the Financial Crisis.” International Journal of Central Banking 8 (S1): 301-309.
Download article
Struggling to Escape from 'Assumption 14'
Friedman, Benjamin M. 2012. “Struggling to Escape from 'Assumption 14'.” New Perspectives on Asset Price Bubbles, edited by Douglas Evanoff, George Kaufmann, and AG Malliaris. New York: Oxford University Press.
2011
Friedman, Benjamin. 2011. “The Religious Roots of Modern Economics: Historical Origins and Contemporary Consequences.” St. John's University, Clemens Lecture Series No.23. Collegeville, MN. Text
Friedman, Benjamin M. 2011. “The No-Growth Trap.” The National Interest, Nov/Dec . Article
Nov./Dec. 2011
The Influence of Religious Thinking on the Smithian Revolution
Friedman, Benjamin M. 2011. “The Influence of Religious Thinking on the Smithian Revolution.” Adam Smith as Theologian, edited by Oslington. New York: Routledge.
Friedman, Benjamin M. 2011. “Economics: A Moral Inquiry with Religious Origins.” American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings 101 ( 3): 166-170.
moral_inquiry-aer_may_2011.pdf
Handbook of Monetary Economics, vol. 3
Friedman, Benjamin M. 2011. Handbook of Monetary Economics, vol. 3. Edited by Benjamin M Friedman and Michael Woodford. North-Holland Publishing Company and American Elsevier Publishing Company.

Part Author

Learning from the Crisis: What Can Central Banks Do?
Friedman, Benjamin M. 2011. “Learning from the Crisis: What Can Central Banks Do?” Challenges to Central Banking in the Context of Financial Crisis, edited by Subir Gokarn. New Delhi: Academic Foundation.
Text
Contributed papers presented at the first International Research Conference on "Challenges to Central Banking in the Context of Financial Crisis", organized by Reserve Bank of India on Feb. 12-13, 2010, in Mumbai, India.
Published June 23, 2011
2010
Friedman, Benjamin M. 2010. “Economic Growth and the Moral Society.” Conversations 8. Text
Autumn 2010
Published April 29, 2010
Implementation of Monetary Policy: How Do Central Banks Set Interest Rates?
Friedman, Benjamin M, and Kenneth N Kuttner. 2010. “Implementation of Monetary Policy: How Do Central Banks Set Interest Rates?” Handbook of Monetary Economics , edited by Benjamin M.Friedman and Michael Woodford, First. Vol. 3. Amsterdam: North-Holland.
Published November 2010
Friedman, Benjamin M. 2010. “Is Our Financial System Serving Us Well.” Daedalus 139 (4): 9-21. Article Abstract
In 1772, at the height of Scotland's worst banking crisis in two generations, David Hume wrote to his close friend Adam Smith. After recounting the bank closures, industrial bankruptcies, spreading unemployment, and even growing "Suspicion" of the soundness of the Bank of England, Hume asked Smith, "Do these Events any-wise affect your Theory?". They certainly did. Smith's analysis of the role of banking in The Wealth of Nations, published just four years later, clearly reflected the lessons he took away from the 1772 crisis. In contrast to the doctrinaire antiregulatory ideology with which he is usually associated by today's economists, Smith favored such measures as usury laws-- specifically, no lending at interest rates above 5 percent - and restrictions on the obligations that banks could issue.
Published Fall 2010
Friedman, Benjamin M. 2010. “Reconstructing Economics in Light of the 2007-? Financial Crisis.” Journal of Economic Education 41 (4): 391-397. Article Abstract
The lessons learned from the recent financial crisis should significantly reshape the economics profession's thinking, including, importantly, what we teach our students. Five such lessons are that we live in a monetary economy and therefore aggregate demand and policies that affect aggregate demand are determinants of real economic outcomes; that what actually matters for this purpose is not money but the volume, availability, and price of credit; that the fact that most lending is done by financial institutions matters as well; that the prices set in our financial markets do not always exhibit the “rationality” economists normally claim for them; and that both frictions and the uneven impact of economic events prevent us from adapting to disturbances in the way textbook economics suggests.
Friedman, Benjamin M. 2010. “Economic Origins and Aims: Is There a Role for Religious Thinking?” Reflections (Yale Divinity School). Text

Yale Divinity School

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