ONLY THE FED HAS EVEN BEEN ABLE TO SLOW THE GROWTH:

Does America need a recession? (The Economist, 8/23/07)

Most people think the question smacks of madness. According to received wisdom, the Fed should not cut interest rates to bail out lenders and investors, because this creates moral hazard and encourages greater risk-taking; but if financial troubles harm spending and jobs the Fed should immediately ease policy so long as inflation remains modest. Central bankers should be guided by the “Taylor rule”—and set interest rates in response to deviations in both output and inflation from desired levels.

But should a central bank always try to avoid recessions? Some economists argue that this could create a much wider form of moral hazard. If long periods of uninterrupted expansions lead people to believe that the Fed can prevent any future recession, consumers, firms, investors and borrowers will be encouraged to take bigger risks, borrowing more and saving less. During the past quarter century the American economy has been in recession for only 5% of the time, compared with 22% of the previous 25 years. Partly this is due to welcome structural changes that have made the economy more stable. But what if it is due to repeated injections of adrenaline every time the economy slows?

Many of America's current financial troubles can be blamed on the mildness of the 2001 recession after the dotcom bubble burst. After its longest unbroken expansion in history, GDP did not even fall for two consecutive quarters, the traditional definition of a recession.

The fact that you have to change the definition of recession just to pretend that there's been one in the time since Ronald Reagan first took office suggests that they aren't all that necessary.

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 23, 2007 3:50 PM