What follows is not ours or anyone else’s list of the most cherished central banking principles; we do not wish either to denigrate Bagehot or to displace him. Rather, it is our distillation of economists and central bankers can and should take away as the Greenspan legacy, that is, it is what Alan Greenspan could have told us—if he had chosen to do so.
Two principles that clearly were important in guiding Greenspan’s decisions do not appear on our list: the concern for price stability and the importance of establishing and maintaining credibility. We omit these principles not because we think them unimportant but because they are so obvious and widely shared that they cannot reasonably be said to define the specific legacy of Alan Greenspan.
Principle No. 1: Keep your options open. Academic economists are fond of writing about the conceptual virtues of rules, precommitment devices, and the like. Greenspan, the great practitioner, is unsympathetic. Rather, as we have noted, he believes that the economy changes far too much and far too fast for conventional econometric tools ever to pin down its structure with any accuracy and, for this reason, committing to a rule for monetary policy or even to a fixed response to a specific shock is dangerous. In this context, the concept of option value should perhaps be interpreted literally: In a world of great uncertainty, the value of keeping your options open is high. And that, presumably, makes it wise to move gradually. Alan Greenspan certainly acts as if he believes that.
Principle No. 2: Don’t let yourself get trapped in doctrinal straitjackets. Similarly, one of Greenspan’s great strengths has been flexibility. He has never let himself get locked in to any economic doctrine (e.g., monetarism), any treasured analytical approach (e.g., the expectational Phillips curve), nor any specific parameter value (e.g., the 6% natural rate). Indeed, you might argue that Greenspan, the empiricist, has shown limited interest in doctrines of any kind. He has also been known to change his mind—without, of course, saying so!—on certain issues (e.g., transparency). The downside of all this flexibility is that nobody knows what “the Greenspan model” of the economy is; that will not be part of his legacy. But the upside is more important. To paraphrase the wise words of James Duesenberry in another context, Greenspan will not “follow a straight line to oblivion.” That’s a good principle for any central banker to remember.
Principle No. 3: Avoid policy reversals. Greenspan believes that rapid changes of direction are damaging to the reputations of both the central bank and its leader, and might also cause volatility in markets. This, of course, both helps explain the importance of “option value” and provides a reason for monetary policymakers to move gradually once they start moving, for there is no going back—at least not for a while.
Principle No. 4: Forecasts and models, though necessary, are unreliable. Greenspan is deeply skeptical about the accuracy of economic forecasts—a result, perhaps, of a lifetime of seeing forecasts go awry. So he is constantly examining what’s going on in the economy right now and trying to figure out which of these developments will be lasting and which will be fleeting. This, we believe, is another reason why Greenspan prefers to move gradually once he starts moving. Like an attentive nurse, he is constantly taking the economy’s temperature. Similarly, even though many staff resources at the Fed are devoted to building models of the economy, Greenspan treats these models as but a small part of the information set 85 relevant for monetary policy. He sees some economists as confusing models with reality, and he doesn’t make that mistake. Nor does he rely on models for forecasting.
Principle No. 5: Act preemptively when you can. A paradox is defined as an apparent contradiction. Here’s one: While skeptical of forecasts (see Principle No. 4), Greenspan has nonetheless been credited with the idea of “preemptive” monetary policy—which, of course, entails acting on the basis of a forecast.109 While the uniqueness of the idea is sometimes exaggerated, it is true that Greenspan has frequently argued that the Fed should tighten preemptively to fight inflation or ease preemptively to forestall economic weakness—and has done so prominently on a number of occasions. This attitude contrasts with traditional central banking practice, which often moves too late against either inflation, unemployment, or both.
Principle No. 6: Risk management works better in practice than formal optimization procedures—especially as a safeguard against very adverse outcomes. In Greenspan’s view, economists don’t know enough to compute and follow “optimal” monetary policies, and we delude ourselves if we pretend we can. So robustness, and probably even satisficing, rather than optimizing (as that term is normally understood) are among the touchstones of the Greenspan standard. As we have seen, Greenspan has characterized himself as practicing the art of risk management— somewhat like a banker does. And like a commercial or investment banker, a central banker must be constantly on guard against very adverse scenarios, even if they have low probabilities of occurring. So, for example, Greenspan’s preoccupation with the dangers of deflation in 2002 and 2003 was seen by some observers as excessive, given the actual risk. But he was determined not to allow the Fed to follow the Bank of Japan into the zero-nominal-interest-rate trap.
Principle No. 7: Recessions should be avoided and/or kept short, as should periods of growth below potential. It may seem silly even to list this principle, much less to credit it to Greenspan—until you remember some of the most cherished traditions in central banking. While he has certainly enjoyed his share of good luck, we think it is no accident that there have been only two mild recessions on his long watch and that he is now in the process of attempting his fourth soft landing (note the adjective). The Greenspan standard internalizes the fact that society finds recessions traumatic; it therefore takes the Fed’s dual mandate seriously. When the economy has appeared to need more running room—in the late 1990s and, one might say, into 2004—Greenspan was less then eager to withdraw the punch bowl.
Principle No. 8: Most oil shocks should not cause recessions. As we have noted, up to the present time, almost all oil shocks—defined as sharp increases in the relative price of oil—have been temporary. And a short-run change in a relative price is not a good reason to have a recession. (See Principle No. 7.) By focusing on core rather than headline inflation, the Greenspan standard has not only used a more reliable indicator of future headline inflation but has also avoided the error of piling tight money on top of an adverse oil shock—which is a pretty sure recipe for recession.
Principle No. 9: Don’t try to burst bubbles; mop up after. First of all, you might fail—or bring down the economy before you burst the bubble. (Again, see Principle No. 7.) Furthermore, bubble bursting is not part of the Fed’s legal 87 mandate, and it might do more harm than good. Finally, the “mop up after” strategy, which may require large injections of central bank liquidity, seems to work pretty well.
Principle No. 10: The short-term real interest rate, relative to its neutral value, is a viable and sensible indicator of the stance of monetary policy. The idea of using the real short rate as the main instrument of monetary policy appears to have been a Greenspan innovation, one which was highly controversial at the time (how can the Fed control a real rate?) but has since found its way into scores of scholarly papers. While the neutral rate can never be known with certainty, the potential errors in estimating it seem no larger than for other candidate instruments. (Who would like to guess the optimal growth rate for M2?)
Principle No. 11: Set your aspirations high, even if you can’t achieve all of them. Sure, a central banker needs to be realistic about what monetary policy can accomplish. (See Principles No. 4 and 6.) But that is not a reason to set low aspirations. Even if an attempt at fine tuning fails (as happened in 1988-1989), it is likely to do more good than harm as long as it is done gradually and with flexibility (see Principle No. 1). And if it succeeds (as in 1994-1995 and perhaps in 1999-2000), society benefits enormously. While the Jackson Hole conference was going on, a poster in the lobby of the hotel warned guests that “A Fed Bear Is a Dead Bear.” Alan Greenspan has definitely been a Fed bull, and that may be one of the chief secrets behind his remarkable longevity and success.