Inflation is a major challenge facing our society—one that impacts all of our daily lives. Here are some resources from Manhattan Institute fellows and Adam Smith Society speakers that help explain what led to the situation we’re in, and what policy steps hold the most promise for getting the economy under control.
- Economists Mickey Levy and Charles Plosser, both members of the Manhattan Institute’s Shadow Open Market Committee (SOMC) wrote in today’s Wall Street Journal about the bold actions the Fed must now undertake.
- MI senior fellow Allison Schrager recently interviewed Dartmouth economist and SOMC member Andrew Levin about what it will take for the Fed to return the economy to “normal."
- At its spring 2022 meeting, the full SOMC convened to discuss the Fed’s Inflation Challenge. You can watch the meeting in its entirety here.
- In a recent City Journal article, David Beckworth breaks down how short-sighted monetary policy decisions by the Fed have sent the dollar into its sharpest inflationary period in decades. In it, he lays out two paths forward: the Volker option of slamming the metaphorical breaks by spiking interest rates and the Greenspan option of "opportunistic disinflation" or allowing natural deflationary events to take their course.
- MI senior fellow Brian Reidl writing for the New York Post breaks down key missteps made by the Biden Administration that let inflation get out of control. He writes his prescription for easing the inflation woes to the administration: "restraining federal spending, encouraging energy exploration and ensuring that businesses can operate efficiently without expensive tariffs and over-regulation."
- MI senior fellow Jason Riley wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal arguing for raising caps on legal foreign workers to combat the current labor shortage. He makes the case that more legal high-skilled immigration will lead to positive "long-run effects on productivity, innovation and entrepreneurship."
- Don Boudreaux, writing for his blog Cafe Hayek, pushed back against the narrative that corporate profits are driving inflation. He argues that increased prices are being driven by the injection of additional purchasing power into the economy, rather than being driven by "corporate greed," as others have asserted.