tailieunhanh - Tài liệu: The American Economic Review

The decline in the value of the currency makes the adjusting country’s goods more competitive internationally. With a lower-valued currency, imports are more expensive relative to domestically produced goods, which should lead to a substitution of domestically produced items for imports. At the same time, a lower-valued currency makes the adjusting country’s exports cheaper for its trading partners. This should lead them to purchase more of the country’s exports. Reducing imports and increasing exports can be an important channel for growth, especially for a country that is heavily involved in international trade. . | The American Economic Review Volume LVIII MARCH 1968 Number 1 THE ROLE OF MONETARY POLICY By Milton Friedman There is wide agreement about the major goals of economic policy high employment stable prices and rapid growth. There is less agreement that these goals are mutually compatible or among those who regard them as incompatible about the terms at which they can and should be substituted for one another. There is least agreement about the role that various instruments of policy can and should play in achieving the several goals. My topic for tonight is the role of one such instrument monetary policy. What can it contribute And how should it be conducted to contribute the most Opinion on these questions has fluctuated widely. In the first flush of enthusiasm about the newly created Federal Reserve System many observers attributed the relative stability of the 1920s to the System s capacity for fine tuning to apply an apt modern term. It came to be widely believed that a new era had arrived in which business cycles had been rendered obsolete by advances in monetary technology. This opinion was shared by economist and layman alike though of course there were some dissonant voices. The Great Contraction destroyed this naive attitude. Opinion swung to the other extreme. Monetary policy was a string. You could pull on it to stop inflation but you could not push on it to halt recession. You could lead a horse to water but you could not make him drink. Such theory by aphorism was soon replaced by Keynes rigorous and sophisticated analysis. Keynes offered simultaneously an explanation for the presumed impotence of monetary policy to stem the depression a nonmonetary interpretation of the depression and an alternative to monetary policy Presidential address delivered at the Eightieth Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association Washington . December 29 1967. I am indebted for helpful criticisms of earlier drafts to Armen Alchian Gary Becker Martin Bronfenbrenner