Mark Thoma on the Macroeconomic and Policy Outlook
Mark Thoma falls into despair when he thinks about implementing stabilization policy. He is, of course, right. There is right now a stunning disconnect between an Obama administration that says that unemployment is and will for a long time remain unacceptably high and an Obama administration that is not pushing for policies to boost jobs on the scale needed in a continent-spanning economy.
Mark Thoma:
I've been pushing hard for more help for labor markets for quite awhile -- at times I've thought it was a bit repetitive, but necessary -- but it's probably time for me to give up and accept that we are going to have a slower recovery than we could have had with more aggressive fiscal policy. Unless there is a dramatic reversal of recent indications that we are at the beginning of a recovery, Congress is not going to provide anything more than token help from here forward.... Because monetary policy loses effectiveness in a deep recession -- something I've been teaching for decades -- I was among the first to call for aggressive fiscal policy. Fiscal policy creates demand directly, it does not rely upon incentives and the hope that people will respond to them. When the crisis hit, we needed fiscal policy right away. Given the lags between changes in policy and actual effects on the economy, which were known to be lengthy, and given that monetary policy was not going to be enough, there was no time to "wait and see" (as many people I respect were calling for).... I think we'd be much better off today if we'd done what is necessary right away instead of hoping and hoping that things weren't going to be so bad, and that we could escape the need for an aggressive policy intervention. This crisis has taught me that policy of that magnitude is nearly impossible to put in place based upon what looks to be happening, i.e. before the recession actually occurs. There must be clear evidence that a severe recession is actually underway before policy will be considered. Unfortunately, by that time it's too late to prevent the worst part of the downturn.... If employment rebounds quickly, great, but that's not what I think is going to happen, and that's not what the evidence suggests. If the recovery is going to be slow, then it's not too late to provide more help. Instead of getting back to full employment by, say, 2013, we could get there sooner if we act now. I'm not the greatest artist in the world, but I even drew a picture:
Why settle for the blue line recovery when the green line is possible?... I'll still complain -- there's no reason to let policymakers off the hook -- but it's time to give up the hope that anything more will be done to help the unemployed find jobs.
