Does Loose Monetary Policy Cause Economic Growth?
At the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s annual economic symposium, held in Jackson Hole, Wyoming on August 21, 2009, Ben Bernanke expressed satisfaction with the action that his administration undertook to save the financial system. According to Bernanke, History is full of examples in which the policy responses to financial crises have been slow and inadequate, often resulting ultimately in greater economic damage and increased fiscal costs. In this episode, by contrast, policymakers in the United States and around the globe responded with speed and force to arrest a rapidly deteriorating and dangerous situation. Furthermore, argues Bernanke, Without these speedy and forceful actions, last October’s panic would likely have continued to intensify, more major financial firms would have failed, and the entire global financial system would have been at serious risk. We cannot know for sure what the economic effects of these events would have been, but what we know about the effects o