Has the Fed improved U.S. economic performance?

Would a Free Banking System Target NGDP Growth?

“…The actual results of central banking systems have not been, contrary to popular belief, unambiguously better than the admittedly-imperfect commodity standards that preceded them (e.g. Selgin et al 2012;Hogan 2014). Taken collectively, these results seriously question central banking's robustness (Salter 2015), which implies that an idealized central bank voluntarily adopting a nominal income target is an irrelevant counterfactual.…”

What You Don't Know Can Hurt You: Knowledge Problems in Monetary Policy

“…For instance, Romer (1986) and Davis (2004Davis ( , 2006 find that the Fed did not reduce economic volatility. Selgin, Lastrapes, and White (2012) and Hogan (2015) find that the Fed has not reduced monetary or macroeconomic instability. Both the National Banking System and the Federal Reserve System have flaws that can manifest in economically costly ways.…”

“…While we agree with the critical attitude of these scholars, we believe skepticism is warranted not just with respect to the monetary policy performance of central banks, but the institution of discretionary monetary policy directed by a central bank itself . Institutional critiques of central banking call for embracing a broader political‐economic paradigm, to question seriously whether central banking as it is currently practiced is capable of achieving its intended goals, especially as they pertain to monetary policy (e.g., Boettke and Smith , ; Conti‐Brown ; Hogan ; Selgin, Lastrapes, and White ). Our analysis of the knowledge problems inherent in conducting monetary policy via a central bank contributes to the literature focused on institutional critique.…”

Governing the banking system: an assessment of resilience based on Elinor Ostrom's design principles

“…Skepticism about the effectiveness of post-crisis policy changes is also not uncommon (Hetzel, 2008, 2012; Salter, 2014a, 2014b; Salter and Tarko, 2017; Sumner, 2012, 2015). Furthermore, the desirability of the current financial regulatory institutions in general has been attacked (Boettke and Smith, 2013, 2015a, 2015b; Hogan, 2015; Selgin et al , 2012). We agree with many of these critics, but we think that they lack the proper conceptual tools for analyzing viable alternatives.…”