Tja, bitke med tem, katera smer makroekonomije (“freshwater” (Chicago, Minnesotta) ali “saltwater” (obe obali)) je bolj “pravilna”, so lahko precej trde. In precej osebne. Ena izmed njih se pravkar dogaja na Fedu v Minneapolisu. V osvežitev spomina: guverner Feda v Minneapolisu Narayana Kocherlakota je lani nepričakovano spremenil mnenje glede politike kvantitativnega sproščanja (QE). Prej je bil velik nasprotnik QE (zaradi potencialnega vpliva na izbruh inflacije), nato pa je (na podlagi dejstev, ker do inflacije po treh letih od začetka QE še ni prišlo) spremenil mnenje in postal zagovornik QE kot načina spodbujanja gospodarstva. To je spremenilo razmerje sil tudi znotraj Fedove centrale.

Toda zadeve so šle še malce dlje. Prejšnji teden so se ameriški mediji razpisali o tem, da so na Fedu v Minneapolisu odpustili glavnega ekonomista Patricka Kehoa ter soavtorico Ellen McGrattan. Oba sta bila ortodoksna pripadnika “freshwater” šole. Komentar Noah Smith.

Two of the Minneapolis Fed’s most eminent and long-serving economists, Patrick Kehoe and Ellen McGrattan, have been fired…[A]lthough the Minneapolis Fed shakeup could be due to any number of reasons—a personality conflict, a disagreement over the Fed bank’s mission, etc.–one possibility is that the personnel changes are related to Fed officials’ changing attitude toward business cycles… 

Patrick Kehoe, one of the economists dismissed from the Fed, is a key figure in a school of economics called “Freshwater Macroeconomics” (the other, Ellen McGrattan, is his frequent co-author)…If the Fed prints money to try to stimulate demand, [the Freshwater people] say, it will only succeed in creating inflation rather than reviving the economy… 

The Freshwater school gained enormous clout in the ‘80s. But in the ‘90s, there was a counterattack from the coast. The Saltwater macroeconomists believed that recessions were economic failures, and that monetary policy was important in fighting them…But one bastion of hard-line freshwater thinking held firm: “Minnesota macro.” The researchers at the University of Minnesota and the Minneapolis Fed have largely hung onto the belief that monetary policy can affect inflation, but can’t fight recessions. 

But there is good reason to think that this view is losing credibility at the Fed. 

Narayana Kocherlakota is…an important bellwether of Fed thinking. His views have shifted decisively toward believing that monetary policy can stabilize the economy. What changed his mind? The answer is obvious: the Great Recession, and the failure of large purchases of long-term government bonds and mortgage-backed assets—QE—to create inflation. It makes all the difference in the world when the No. 1 event shaping the questions macroeconomists ask is no longer the Great Inflation of the 1970s, but the Great Recession that still casts its shadow over the world. 

Nor is Kocherlakota the only Fed official to change his mind. So even if the Minneapolis Fed shakeup wasn’t caused by a clash of ideas, the Fed’s shift toward Saltwater macro is a real phenomenon… 

As QE ramped up, disputes broke out among Fed economists. Some, like Philadelphia Fed president Charles Plosser (himself a noted Freshwater researcher) and Minneapolis Fed president Narayana Kocherlakota, argued that QE would put us in danger of inflation. But as the Fed’s printing presses rattled on and inflation failed to materialize, some “hard money” advocates had second thoughts. Last year, Kocherlakota declared that he had changed his mind, and now supported QE… 

Kehoe and McGrattan’s dismissal drew loud protests from other members of the Freshwater school…Steve Williamson, a Freshwater economist at Washington University, blogged that Kocherlakota “seems intent on destroying the [Minneapolis Fed] as a research institution.” So whether or not the firings had anything to do with economic theories, Freshwater folks are concerned, and with good reason. A key part of the genesis of Freshwater macro was a desire to say something about monetary policy (i.e., why not to use it). If the Fed refuses to listen to leading Freshwater voices, then a big chunk of the real-world influence of this school of thought will be gone.