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Scott Sumner

Affiliation: Bentley University

Scott Sumner has taught economics at Bentley University for the past 27 years.

He earned a BA in economics at Wisconsin and a PhD at University of Chicago.

Professor Sumner's current research topics include monetary policy targets and the Great Depression. His areas of interest are macroeconomics, monetary theory and policy, and history of economic thought.

Professor Sumner has published articles in the Journal of Political Economy, the Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, and the Bulletin of Economic Research.

Visit: TheMoneyIllusion




Scott Sumner's Latest Articles | 311

We Trust Central Banks . . . To Do the Wrong Thing

May 18, 2012| 

In recent months central banks have resorted to using the phony “credibility” issue.  The claim is that they had to fight hard in the 1970s and early 1980s... Read »

Buffett Rules

May 17, 2012| 

There’s nothing more dismaying that seeing progressives revert back to the mistakes of the past.  I’m talking about the renewed interest in super high top marginal... Read »

Shall We Target Inflation with Fiscal Policy?

May 16, 2012| 

Most Keynesians seem to think that fiscal policy influences AD and inflation, even when rates aren’t stuck at the zero bound.  This recent article from The Economist... Read »

Did the Government Cause the Great Depression?

May 15, 2012| 

A while back some commenters asked me to respond to this claim by Brad DeLong: Back then, the Friedmans made three powerful factual claims about how the world works... Read »

There is No Debt Crisis in Europe–it’s a Monetary Crisis

May 15, 2012| 

I stole the title of this post from a PowerPoint slide that Lars Christensen sent me.  Perhaps there’s a bit of hyperbole there, but it reminded me of my research... Read »

“Obviously” the Fed will Never Run Out of Ammunition

May 13, 2012| 

Here’s Ben Bernanke in 1999: The important question, of course, is whether a determined Bank of Japan would be able to depreciate the yen. I am not aware of any... Read »

It’s Not About Credit, it’s About NGDP

May 9, 2012| 

Because Raghu Rajan’s posts on macroeconomics tend to drive me nuts, let me start off on a positive note, where I partly agree with him: It’s probably not a... Read »

More Nonsense on Taxes

May 1, 2012| 

Saez and Picketty are really starting to annoy me now.   They’ve been going around suggesting that the optimal top rate on federal income taxes is about 70%. ... Read »

Real Wages are Very Different from Real Incomes

Apr 30, 2012| 

I get lots of commenters complaining that monetary stimulus would not work because it would lead to inflation, which would reduce real wages.  This would (they... Read »

Ben Has a Job to Do, and So Does Paul

Apr 29, 2012| 

Binyamin Appelbaum recently made that following claim: It’s worth reading the entirety of this response from the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, to... Read »

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