Facebook Twitter LinkedIn

I have spent the past 6 years trying to do two jobs at once, my teaching job at Bentley and lots of blogging/writing/speaking on monetary reform. I am pleased to announce that from now on I’ll be able to focus on monetary policy. Through a very generous donation of Kenneth Duda (a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who is supportive of market monetarism), the Mercatus Center has created a new program on monetary policy, and appointed me as director. I’m sure people will have some questions about this, so let me provide a bit more detail.

A few months back I began raising money to set up a NGDP futures market. At the time, Ken Duda offered to support the project with a large donation. He also expressed an interest in supporting my NGDP targeting in any way he could. Initially he suggested setting up a foundation to promote monetary reform, and having me direct the foundation. I thought it might make more sense to work within an institution such as a university or a think tank, where I could get managerial support. We eventually decided to embed the project within the Mercatus Center.

The Mercatus Center is a bit different from Washington DC think tanks. It is often regarded as the world’s premier university-based research center with a focus on free market ideas. I was reassured by the fact that Mercatus is attached to George Mason University (my favorite econ program), and that Tyler Cowen is the Chairman of the Board. One nice thing about Mercatus is that they are focused on funding serious academic research, and don’t insist that researchers follow any particular party line. I’ve done three papers for Mercatus in recent years, but they’ve also funded other researchers with very different views of monetary policy.

Here I might add that at this stage of my life I’m not too worried about a lack of academic freedom. I’ve always been the type to say what I thought, even though my research topics were so unconventional that I often had a hard time getting published, and almost didn’t get tenure. Nonetheless, it’s nice to be in a situation where no one is likely to question my academic independence. Not only does Mercatus allow me academic freedom, Ken Duda also wants me to follow the implications of my research where ever it leads, even if it leads me away from NGDP targeting.

As you might expect from someone who has donated money to both MoveOn.org and Mercatus, Ken Duda is not a strongly partisan or ideological person. He has told me that he’s basically a pragmatist, who became very frustrated by the condition of the US economy after 2008 and thought that my monetary policy ideas made sense. He’s been a long time reader of my blog and has commented on numerous occasions.

I actually wouldn’t have had any problem taking a position funded by a much more partisan donor, and/or at a highly ideological think tank. My policy is to always say what I think and let the chips fall where they may. But I can’t deny it’s nice to be involved with a donor and research center that encourage academic freedom.

Although I am done teaching, I will actually be a Bentley employee for another 18 months, and after that I hope to maintain my Bentley affiliation through some sort “emeritus” relationship. I will continue to live in the Boston area, although long term we plan to retire in Southern California. (In a sense I’ll never retire, as I’ll keep promoting NGDP.) My contract with Mercatus runs through mid-2018. I won’t discuss the monetary details, other than to say I’ll make roughly as much doing this project over the next 3 and 1/2 years as I would have made teaching at Bentley over the next 2 and 1/2 years. More work for the money, but that’s fine as I won’t be so stressed trying to do 100 things at once.

I hope to achieve many goals, but the one that might be of greatest interest to MoneyIllusion readers is a book on NGDP targeting and market monetarism, based on this blog. Mark Sadowski has agreed to work as a research assistant on the project. I also hope to support academic research that provides more “rigorous” empirical and theoretical support for NGDPLT and related ideas. And I’ll continue to do shorter papers, op eds, speak to academics, business people and policymakers, work on the NGDP futures markets, etc.

And of course I’ll keep blogging here and at Econlog.

I’ve known this was likely to happen for several months, but kept it secret until the funding was in place. Even my colleagues didn’t know (except my chair.) It was a bittersweet feeling going down the final stretch last semester after 34 years of teaching. I always envisioned telling my students it was my last class, but life never plays out as you envision it will.

I’ve started noticing restaurants that offer senior discounts to the over 60 group, a milestone I’ll reach later this year. But you know what they say, 60 is the new 50.

PS. I have a new post at Econlog on the zero bound problem.

Update: Stocks open sharply higher on the news! 🙂

Facebook Twitter LinkedIn

Tags:

This entry was posted on January 13th, 2015 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.



