Economics 341

Monetary and Fiscal Policy
Fall 2016
Jeffrey Parker, Reed College
Essay #1
Due by class-time on the last day of September

The Federal Open-Market Committee met on September 20 and 21. You can read the policy statement and lots more at http://www.federalreserve.gov/. There was dissent at this meeting about whether or not to raise the target federal-funds interest rate. 

Your task is the review the evidence, both at the Board of Governors site and whatever you can find elsewhere, and write a short (1-3 page) essay explaining whether you would have voted with the majority to keep the target at the current 0.25-0.50 range or with the minority to raise the target (and to what). There is no "right answer" to this question, so your essay will be evaluated on how well you justify the answer with basic macroeconomic theory and appropriate data about the current macroeconomic situation.

You should submit your essay as an email attachment in either Word or PDF format to parker@reed.edu.