Steven Kamin

Dec 20, 2024 | thehill.com | Steven Kamin

President-elect Donald Trump’s obsession with tariffs reflects a deep-seated antipathy toward trade and trade deficits — in his own words, “trade deficits hurt the economy very badly.”Whether the trade deficit is really a problem for the American economy is debatable. But either way, most economists oppose using tariffs to address the issue, arguing that higher tariffs will boost inflation, lower real wages, kill jobs, disrupt the global economy and weaken relationships with our allies.

Oct 3, 2024 | aei.org | Steven Kamin

By Steven B. KaminBy the middle of September, financial markets had worked themselves up into a lather as they anticipated the Fed’s first rate cut of this policy cycle. It had indeed been a surprisingly long wait. That’s partly because markets and the Fed had occasionally been wrong-footed by data surprises, such as the uptick in inflation in the first quarter of this year. And it’s partly because the Fed had been exceptionally cautious in taking its foot off the brakes. Read the full article here.

Sep 26, 2024 | aei.org | Steven Kamin |Ana M Aguilar |Jon Frost |Rafael A. Guerra

AbstractWe examine the relationship between digital payment innovation, economic growth and informal activities in 101 economies over 2014–19. We find that a one-percentage point increase in digital payments use is associated with increases in the growth of GDP per capita of 0.10 percentage points over a two-year period, and a decline in the share of informal sector employment of 0.06 percentage points over a two-year period.

Sep 17, 2024 | aei.org | Steven Kamin |Zichu Yang

This week, the Fed’s monetary policy committee will almost certainly cut its policy interest rate, the “fed funds rate.” That initial loosening of monetary policy will be a welcome development, even if only a 0.25 percent cut. But a larger reduction, of 0.5 percent, would be even more welcome. Although inflation has been moving downward for a couple of years now, this rate cut has been a long time in coming.

Sep 16, 2024 | aei.org | Steven Kamin |Desmond Lachman

Did keeping interest rates low for so long create an unnecessary “free money” distortion, increasing income inequality? AEI Senior Fellows Steven Kamin and Desmond Lachman contributed to The International Economy’s Spring 2024 symposium of views on the negative rate experiment.