A Nobel winner explains the big reason why the Fed should keep rates low

By Jim Tankersley August 26 at 9:52 AM
Over the past year Joseph Stiglitz has ramped up what is a rare campaign for an economist, particularly a Nobel laureate. He is pressuring policymakers, on the campaign trail and inside the Federal Reserve, to combat America's widening income inequality, which he has long called a massive economic concern.

Stiglitz and his team of researchers at the Roosevelt Institute produced a report earlier this year that Democratic candidates for president, including party frontrunner Hillary Clinton, have borrowed liberally from in their own policy plans. Today, he's releasing a new paper aimed at monetary policy makers, arguing that "the Fed has played a central role in the creation of inequality" and laying out several proposals to fix that - including delaying the interest-rate increase that most analysts had expected to come next month (at least before the recent global market turmoil broke out).

On Thursday, Stiglitz will take his message to a conference in Jackson Hole, Wy., held by a group called the "Fed Up" campaign, in the shadow of an annual monetary policy conference that draws top monetary thinkers from around the world. He previewed that message in a phone interview with Wonkblog, which has been edited for length.

interview at link

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2015/08/26/a-nobel-winner-explains-the-big-reason-why-the-fed-should-keep-rates-low/