Economic Letter

In the wake of the East Asian, Russian, and Brazilian currency crises of the 1990s, a growing chorus of observers and economists (for example, Radelet and Sachs 1998, and Stiglitz 2000) has argued that an underlying cause of – or at least a contributing factor to – such disruptions is the liberalization of international capital flows, especially when combined with fixed exchange rates. A common policy prescription that follows from this argument is to impose restrictions on capital flows and other international payments with the hope of insulating economies from speculative attacks and thereby creating greater currency stability.

The recent passage of a tax cut package in the U.S. raises an interesting and important question for monetary policy: Will the tax cuts create inflation that the Fed cannot contain? According to conventional wisdom, the answer is “no.” So long as a central bank is independent and well run, it can control inflation, irrespective of the stance of fiscal policy.

This Economic Letter is adapted from several recent presentations by Robert T. Parry, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, to civic and professional organizations in California.

Stock prices have been on an extraordinary ride in the last two and a half years, soaring to phenomenal heights and then plunging at head-spinning rates. At their peaks, the NASDAQ composite and the S&P 500 were up 579% and 233%, respectively, compared to the beginning of 1995.

Controlling inflation is a key concern of central bankers around the world. But how best to control inflation differs across countries according to their individual characteristics; for example, small open economies tend to import more goods as a percentage of GDP than larger, more closed, economies, such as the United States.

On April 26, 2001, Junichiro Koizumi was elected Prime Minister of Japan by the Parliament, winning a popular mandate to reform the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and lead the country out of a decade of economic and financial distress. Koizumi is known as a maverick—a title of honor he will richly deserve if his proposal to privatize Japan’s Postal Savings System (PSS) succeeds: It would represent the most significant and difficult structural change in Japanese finance in the postwar period.

The increase in productivity growth rates beginning in the mid-1990s has helped boost economic growth and speed the rate at which living standards rise in the United States. Between 1995 and 2000, productivity growth averaged 2.8%—almost double the rate during the preceding 22 years! This increase in productivity growth is thought by many observers to be associated with the increased importance of information technology (IT), a hypothesis often referred to as the “New Economy” view.

During most of the 1990s, the United States experienced exceptionally good times, and the Federal Reserve received some of the credit for the booming economy and low inflation.

In the past few years, there have been several developments in the field of modeling the credit risk in banks’ commercial loan portfolios. Credit risk is essentially the possibility that a bank’s loan portfolio will lose value if its borrowers become unable to pay back their debts.