Re: John Makin — The Fed Should Ease to Inflate House Prices?

The Wall Street Journal has been extremely ecumenical about airing a variety of critics of the Federal Reserve on its editorial page. In a series of posts, I will suggest reasons for remaining skeptical about the logic and evidence behind all of this policy advice.


On April 14, John Makin of the American Enterprise Institute proposed, “The Inflation Solution to the Housing Mess.” He thinks, “The Fed should announce its intention to add to its holding of Treasury securities in order to provide additional liquidity.” Makin knows “there is a substantial risk that inflation may rise for a time – this would be the policy goal.”


To establish higher inflation as a “policy goal” gives a small part of the economy (the existing inventory of new and used homes) priority over the rest (he does not and could not claim inflation would be confined to housing). He thinks easy money could halt declines in the Case‐​Shiller index of homes prices, although I have shown that index is not representative of nationwide housing prices


Makin argues that

the Fed’s lending programs have not provided adequate liquidity to financial markets: Reserves supplied to the banking system have grown at a tiny 0.6% annual rate since December. That’s because the reserves the Fed is injecting by lending are effectively pulled out or “sterilized” by its sales of Treasury securities. The Fed has been selling these securities to keep the fed funds rate at the level targeted by its Federal Open Market Committee directives.

But it doesn’t matter whether the Fed increases the monetary base (reserves and currency) by buying Treasury bills, gold bars, or Bear Stearns’ securities. In each case the Fed pays for new assets by writing a check on the Fed which ends up being added to bank reserves at the Federal Reserve banks.


The biweekly bank reserve data bounces around too much to speak of an annual rate of change between two dates. Reserves were $91.8 billion in the two weeks ended October 24 and $97.1 billion by March 26, but converting that into an annual rate of change would be just as misleading as Makin’s selective comparison.


Bank loans have been growing at a 10% annual rate this year, with Commercial and Industrial loans growing at a 20% pace. This does not look at though the banks are starved for reserves or that the Fed is “pushing on a string.”


Makin’s inference that monetary policy is too tight is dubious but also redundant. He clearly wants inflation to be higher, as a policy goal.