Sensible rules: Policy, politics and financial crises

In this video, three leading economists discuss fiscal policy, including the Federal Reserve’s dual mandate, the “Taylor Rule,” the 2009 stimulus package, the efficacy of temporary tax rebates and the financial crises in Europe. The interview was conducted December 7, 2011 at the Center for the Advanced Study in Economic Efficiency at Arizona State University. Center Director Edward C. Prescott and Associate Director Lee Ohanian invited Stanford economist John Taylor to be the first guest in the Interviews with Leading Economists Series.

In this video, three leading economists discuss fiscal policy, including the Federal Reserve’s dual mandate, the “Taylor Rule,” the 2009 stimulus package, the efficacy of temporary tax rebates and the financial crises in Europe. The interview was conducted December 7, 2011 at the Center for the Advanced Study in Economic Efficiency at Arizona State University. Center Director Edward C. Prescott and Associate Director Lee Ohanian invited Stanford economist John Taylor to be the first guest in the Interviews with Leading Economists Series.

Taylor is the Mary and Robert Raymond Professor of Economics at Stanford University, where he is also the George P. Schultz Senior Fellow in Economics at the Hoover Institution. Taylor has served in a number of federal cabinet positions and was director of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research University.

Center Director Edward Prescott is the W. P. Carey Chaired Professor of Economics at Arizona State University and a senior monetary adviser at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. In 2004, Prescott was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences jointly with Finn Kydland for their contributions to dynamic macroeconomics, in particular, the time consistency of economic policy and the driving forces behind business cycles. In addition, Prescott was awarded the 2002 Erwin Plein Nemmers Prize in Economics, elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1992) and a fellow of the Econometrica Society (1980), and selected to be a Guggenheim fellow (1974–75). In 2008, he was elected a member of the National Academy of Science.

Lee E. Ohanian is professor of economics and director of the Ettinger Family Program in Macroeconomic Research at UCLA, where he has taught since 1999. He is an advisor to the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, and previously has advised other Federal Reserve Banks, foreign central banks and the National Science Foundation. He has been an economic advisor to state and national political campaigns. His research, which recently has been discussed in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and other media sources, focuses on economic crises, and has been published widely in a number of peer-reviewed journals. He is co-director of the research initiative "Macroeconomics across Time and Space" at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

The Interviews with Leading Economists Series serves as forum for leading economists to discuss their research, ideas on economic policy and how to advance society's goal of wealth creation and economic opportunity. The mission of the Center for the Advanced Study in Economic Efficiency is to advance economics so it can better address issues in how to achieve greater economic efficiency. One part of the mission is the development of economic theory so that issues of efficiency can be addressed in broader contexts. A second part of the mission is to apply economic theory to issues of public concern through the integration of theoretical and factual studies. The third part of the mission is to diffuse this knowledge globally.

John Taylor Interview from Keith Jennings.