The Richmond Fed published a long interview with me in their Econ Focus, shorter pdf (print) version here and longer web version here. Some of the questions:
- Does the 2010 Dodd-Frank regulatory reform act meaningfully address runs on shadow banking?
- So what do you think is the most promising way to meaningfully end “too big to fail”?
- Do you think there’s any reason to believe recessions following financial crises should necessarily be longer and more severe, as Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff have famously suggested?
- Many people have asked whether the finance industry has gotten too big. How should we think about that?
- What are your thoughts on quantitative easing (QE) — the Fed’s massive purchases of Treasuries and other assets to push down long-term interest rates — both on its effectiveness and on the fear that it’s going to lead to hyperinflation?
- Both fiscal and monetary policies have been on extreme courses recently. What are your thoughts on how they might affect each other as they move back to normal levels?
- Switching gears to finance specifically, what do you think are some of the big unanswered questions for research?
- You wrote an op-ed on an “alternative maximum tax.” What’s the idea there?
- Can transfers really help the bottom half of the income distribution?
- Which economists have influenced you the most?
Thanks to Aaron Steelman, Lisa Kenney and especially Renee Haltom, who helped a lot with the editing. I’m a lot less coherent in person!
