By Gabriel Mathy, Skanda Amarnath and Alex Williams Executive Summary Whenever inflation becomes a part of political or economic discourse, policymakers and commentators instinctively reach for narratives and models drawn from the experience of the 1970s inflation. However, these models offer little explanation for even adjacent experiences of inflation. Case in point…

By Arnab Datta, Skanda Amarnath and Alex Williams Executive Summary In order for policy to operate on the scale necessary to fix our failing infrastructure and secure prosperity for American workers, we need to ask pointed questions about how best to finance these goals, given the present political and economic environment. Large…

By Skanda Amarnath and Alex Williams Executive Summary The Implications of the Fed’s Framework Revisions For The Fed’s Communication of Maximum Employment: Given the Fed’s recent framework revisions and forward guidance commitment to maintain current interest rates until “maximum employment” is achieved, the Fed’s communication with respect to its assessment of “maximum employment” is overdue for a clarification. The previous framework hardwired the Phillips Curve into…

By Alex Williams Many thanks to Hassan Khan for helping with this piece Executive Summary Throughout our series on semiconductors, we have used the semiconductor industry to explore big questions in economic theory and industrial policy. So far, we have refrained from giving specific policy recommendations, instead providing historical examples to illustrate…

By Alex Williams and Hassan Khan This post is the second in a series that uses the history and economics of the American semiconductor industry to ask big picture questions about the future of fiscal policy and industrial policy. As the pandemic ends, the US will have a historic opportunity…

By Skanda Amarnath and Alex Williams Many thanks to Hassan Khan for helping with this piece Summary This post is the first in a series that uses the history and economics of the American semiconductor industry to ask big picture questions about the future of fiscal policy and industrial policy. As…

By Alex Williams Summary Commentary about the Biden administration’s proposed fiscal relief policies has relied heavily on estimates of the economy’s potential output. However, few commentators or policymakers look under the hood to check how these estimates are calculated. Oftentimes, estimates of potential output — the maximum inflation-adjusted dollar value that…

By Skanda Amarnath and Alex Williams Summary The Fed’s framework review and forward guidance from this past fall showed an encouraging willingness to center labor market outcomes over inflation in evaluating interest rate policy. However, the Fed has only partially clarified how they will evaluate real-time inflationary dynamics within their new…

Alex Williams, Employ America Executive Summary Good policy proceeds equally from good politics and good policy analysis. While the Enhanced Unemployment Insurance provisions of the CARES Act were designed in part by the limitations of the existing UI system, they were extremely successful in supporting workers and driving down the poverty rate…