Abstract
This volume brings together the papers and discussant comments presented at a conference in honor of Benjamin Friedman hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, April 22–23, 2011. The authors of the papers and the distinguished group of discussants who participated in the conference were drawn from the very deep pool of students and co-authors whom Ben has mentored and inspired over his four decades at Harvard. The range of topics spanned by the papers, discussions, and policymaker panel that concluded the conference reflects the impressive scope of Ben’s own research and its considerable impact on monetary economics, public economics, and financial economics, to name just three fields where Ben and his students have made important and durable contributions as scholars and, in many cases, as policymakers themselves. The papers also embody in many ways Ben’s distinctive style of formulating economic research questions. Again and again, readers will discern in these papers an attention to policy relevance, practical application, and an effort to identify implications that are robust across narrow methodological boundaries. Ben’s work has taught us that to understand the world as it is and not as some would wish it to be, we must accept that markets are incomplete, habitats are preferred, and expectations may not always be well approximated by simple linear functions that would only be “rational” under extreme information assumptions. Ben’s students are indebted to him for so much, not least for providing us with the deep and lasting foundations to conduct research in monetary economics, to contribute to economic policy, and for teaching us that good economics is more about the questions we seek to answer and not so much about the paradigms we seek to promote.
Authors
- Richard Clarida
- Jeff Fuhrer