Teaching Fiscal Policy

Megan McArdle is a regular blogger for The Atlantic magazine. In this post, she explains why using fiscal policy to stimulate the economy may be more limited than in the past. Granted, Congress and the Administration could always issue another stimulus check, but the idea of increased spending on things such as infrastructure, as in the New Deal, may be a bit naive. She points to issues of timing and regulatory barriers as reasons why this aspect of fiscal policy may have more of a lag than monetary policy.

And as to the impact of a stimulus check, check out the last half hour of this interview with Allan Meltzer by Russ Roberts over at EconTalk.

There are some interesting things to work into your classroom presentations, to be sure.

I look forward to your comments.