Monetary Policy and Economic Performance: The Recent Experience of the United States and Japan

On the evening of October 29, 2012, “Hurricane” Sandy made land- fall on the New York coastline, battering the land with strong winds, torrential rain, and record-breaking storm surges. Homes and commercial structures were destroyed; roads and tunnels were flooded; and more than 23,000 people sought refuge in temporary shelters, with many others facing weeks without power and electricity. At the time, Sandy was heralded as one of the costliest hurricanes in the his- tory of the United States; the second costliest hurricane only to Katrina, which hit New Orleans in 2005. Unfortunately, recent experience with Hurricanes Florence, Maria, Harvey, and Irma suggest that this pattern of devastating superstorms may become the new norm as climate change produces more extreme and unpredictable weather events. In Sandy’s aftermath, as individuals returned to their homes, or what remained of them, and communities began to rebuild, the true cost of the storm became apparent. A year after the storm, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (“FEMA”) estimated that over $1.4 billion in assistance was provided to 182,000 survivors of the dis- aster; another $3.2 billion was provided to state and local governments for debris removal, infrastructure repair, and emergency protective measures. More than $2.4 billion was provided to individuals and businesses in the form of low-interest loans through the Small Business Administration (“SBA”), and millions more were spent on grants de- signed to implement mitigation measures in the future and to provide unemployment assistance to survivors. Before the storm, homeowners paid premiums for flood insurance provided through the National Flood Insurance Program (“NFIP”), and for homeowner’s insurance provided by dozens of private insurers. In the months following the storm, they began to file claims for assistance in rebuilding their homes. While many such claims were re- solved successfully, many homeowners were unhappy with the settlement amounts offered by their insurance carriers and felt compelled to file lawsuits in the surrounding state and federal courts. Many of those lawsuits were filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York (“EDNY”). This case study describes the EDNY’s specifically crafted, unique approach to handling the mass litigation that ensued from Sandy’s devastation, documents some of the problems that the Court faced during that mass litigation, and describes some of the lessons learned from the Court’s experience.

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Defence spending and economic performance in the United States: A causal analysis

Defence Economics ◽

10.1080/10430719008404669 ◽

1990 ◽

Vol 1 (4) ◽

pp. 295-309 ◽

Cited By ~ 38

Author(s):

David Kinsella

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Economic Performance ◽

The United States ◽

Causal Analysis ◽

Defence Spending

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War and the Next Lesson

Money ◽

10.23943/princeton/9780691171661.003.0017 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

John Kenneth Galbraith ◽

James K. Galbraith

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Monetary Policy ◽

World War Ii ◽

Fiscal Policy ◽

World War I ◽

Great Depression ◽

The United States ◽

World War ◽

John Maynard Keynes ◽

The Great Depression

This chapter examines the lessons of World War II with respect to money and monetary policy. World War I exposed the fragility of the monetary structure that had gold as its foundation, the great boom of the 1920s showed how futile monetary policy was as an instrument of restraint, and the Great Depression highlighted the ineffectuality of monetary policy for rescuing the country from a slump—for breaking out of the underemployment equilibrium once this had been fully and firmly established. On the part of John Maynard Keynes, the lesson was that only fiscal policy ensured not just that money was available to be borrowed but that it would be borrowed and would be spent. The chapter considers the experiences of Britain, Germany, and the United States with a lesson of World War II: that general measures for restraining demand do not prevent inflation in an economy that is operating at or near capacity.

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Spillovers of the United States’ Unconventional Monetary Policy to Emerging Asia

Macroeconomic Shocks and Unconventional Monetary Policy ◽

10.1093/oso/9780198838104.003.0006 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 118-145

Author(s):

Ying Xu ◽

Hai Anh La

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Monetary Policy ◽

Bank Lending ◽

The United States ◽

Quantitative Easing ◽

Unconventional Monetary Policy ◽

Bank Lending Channel ◽

Lending Channel ◽

Cross Border ◽

Syndicated Loan Market

This chapter assesses the spillover effects of the United States’ unconventional monetary policy on the Asian credit market. With a focus on cross-border bank lending, it employs firm-level loan data with regard to the syndicated loan market and measures the international bank lending channel through changes in United States dollar-denominated loans extended to Asian borrowers. It finds that the growth of dollar credit in Asia increased substantially in response to quantitative easing in the US financial market. The results of this study confirm the existence of the bank lending channel in Asia and emphasize the role of credit flows in transmitting financial conditions. The chapter also provides new evidence of cross-border liquidity spillover in the syndicated loan market. It finds that the overall spillover effect was large but differed significantly in Asia by types of borrowing firms, financing purposes, and loan terms at different stages of the quantitative easing programmes.

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