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Scott Sumner | |
|---|---|
 Sumner in a 2016 video by the Mercatus Center | |
| Born | 1955 (age 68–69) |
| Academic career | |
| Field | Monetary economics |
| Institutions | |
| School or tradition | Market monetarism |
| Alma mater | University of Wisconsin (B.A.) University of Chicago (Ph.D.) |
| Influences | Milton Friedman |
| Information at IDEAS / RePEc | |
Scott B. Sumner (born 1955) is an American economist. He was previously the Director of the Program on Monetary Policy at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, a Research Fellow at the Independent Institute, and a professor at Bentley University in Waltham, Massachusetts. His economics blog, The Money Illusion,[1] popularized the idea of nominal GDP targeting, which says that the Federal Reserve and other central banks should target nominal GDP, real GDP growth plus the rate of inflation, to better "induce the correct level of business investment".[2]
In May 2012, Chicago Fed President Charles L. Evans became the first sitting member of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) to endorse the idea.[3]
After Ben Bernanke's announcement of a new round of quantitative easing on September 13, 2012, which open-endedly committed the FOMC to purchase $40 billion agency mortgage-backed securities per month until the "labor market improves substantially", some media outlets began hailing him as the "blogger who saved the economy", for popularizing the concept of nominal income targeting.[4]
- ^ "It's all demand side".
- ^ Greeley, Brendan (November 1, 2012). "The Blog That Got Bernanke to Go Big". Bloomberg Businessweek. Archived from the original on November 5, 2012.
- ^ O'Brien, Matthew (May 2, 2012). "A Rebellion at the Federal Reserve?". The Atlantic.
- ^ Thompson, Derek (September 14, 2012). "The Blogger Who Saved the Economy". The Atlantic.