Scholarly Comments on Academic Economics

The Federal Reserve System’s Influence on Research in Monetary Economics

by

*Lawrence H. White* is the F. A. Hayek Professor of Economic History at the University of Missouri—St. Louis. He is also Visiting Professor at the Queen’s University of Belfast. He received his AB in economics from Harvard in 1977 and his Ph.D. in economi

Abstract

The Federal Reserve System is a major sponsor of monetary economics research by American economists. I provide some measures of the size of the Fed’s research program (both inputs and published outputs) and consider how the Fed’s sponsorship may directly and indirectly influence the character of academic research in monetary economics. In particular, I raise the issue of status quo bias in the Fed-sponsored research.