Alexander W. Salter

Three Common Myths About Money and Inflation

"If we oversimplify inflation, we won’t know how to fight it, or whether we should fight it at all. Political responses to economic turmoil are bad enough without the additional complication of widespread misperceptions amongst the public." ~ Alexander William Salter

Constituting Constitutional Economics

"As Smith himself put it: 'Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice.'" ~ Alexander William Salter

Searching for Good Governance

"Applications of constitutional political economy include constitutional design and assessment. Finding the right mixture of voice and exit is one of the most important parts. Let’s get started." ~ Alexander William Salter

The Great Inflation Debate Is Missing Why Inflation Matters

"The public debate over inflation is a great opportunity to focus on what really matters: subjecting monetary policymakers to the rule of law. Unfortunately, we’re currently squandering that opportunity to repeat pop-macroeconomic fallacies." ~ Alexander W. Salter

Is Inflation Really a Problem?

"Inflation has real costs when it’s unpredictable. We want monetary institutions to keep generalized price increases on a steady, anticipable path. Since central banks often go out of their way not to be understood, we might have a valid complaint against them after all." ~ Alexander W. Salter

Enough About Interest Rates!

"We need to change the public conversation surrounding monetary policy. Talking about the Fed’s activities in terms of interest rates is easy, but deeply flawed. It is better to keep an eye on more relevant variables, like the overall size of the balance sheet." ~ Alexander William Salter

Reining In the Fed

"We know all too well that when it comes to bureaucratic mission creep, it’s incredibly difficult to put the genie back in the bottle. That’s why we must work to right the Fed’s course starting now. Its roles in fighting recessions and preventing financial panics are too important to be hijacked by partisanship." ~ Alexander William Salter

Monetary Control: Central Banks Today

"The Fed’s operating framework systematically tends towards the abuse of life, liberty, and property. If we want to fix this, we need to take a much closer look at the relationship between money and freedom. Only if we understand this relationship, philosophically, economically, and historically, will we be in a position to fix what’s gone wrong with our monetary institutions." ~ Alexander W. Salter

Central Banking and the Heavy Hand of the State

"The 'need' for a central bank is due to economists inaccurately projecting onto historical banking systems their contemporary monetary-macroeconomic paradigms, not any fatal flaw in these systems. Neither theory nor history show we need a central bank to guarantee optimal economic performance." ~ Alexander W. Salter