An Unconventional Central Banker

Since the outbreak of the global financial crisis and recession, we’ve seen some renewed interest (and angst) regarding the role of the central bank and of treasury-central bank cooperation.  (The most recent example comes out of Japan, in which Japanese PM Shinzo Abe has been pushing for the Bank of Japan to accommodate his relatively ambitious fiscal stimulus program.)

In the US context, many of these issues bring us back to the 1951 Treasury-Federal Reserve Accord, establishing the parameters of the Fed’s independence.  In a new working paper and one-pager, Thorvald Grung Moe of Norges Bank (and a research associate at the Levy Institute) offers an alternative reading of the history and significance of the ’51 Accord—and of central bank independence in general—through an analysis of the career and views of Fed Chairman Marriner Eccles, and of his supporting role in the events leading up to the Accord in particular.

Moe stresses that Eccles’ support for the Accord has to be understood in the inflationary context of the time, and that a portrait of Eccles’ views that doesn’t also include his 1930s-era support for deficit financing and accommodative monetary policy is seriously incomplete.  “The history of the Accord,” Moe writes, “should teach central bankers that independence can be crucial for fighting inflation, but also encourage them to be more supportive of government efforts to fight deflation and mass unemployment.”

Moe also highlights Eccles’ positions on the sustainability of public debt, some of which would place him in stark opposition to most deficit hawks today (and some doves, for that matter).  Here is Eccles, speaking in 1934:

“If a man owed himself, he could not be bankrupt, and neither can a nation. We have got all of the wealth and resources we ever had, and we do not have the sense, the financial and political leadership, to know how to use them.”

Read Moe’s one-pager here and his working paper here.