## Lessons from History

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**Canonical URL:** [Lessons from History](https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2023/march/book-review-conti-brown.pdf)

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### Summary of the book and scope
- Title reviewed: A Monetary and Fiscal History of the United States, 1961–2021 by Alan S. Blinder.
- Publication details cited: Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 432 pp., 2022, $39.95.
- Framing: A historical account linking monetary and fiscal policy from 1961 through 2021 with explicit attention to implications for present policy disputes.
- Authorial style: Energetic prose with “Blinderian parentheticals” and biographical snippets; a history written for contemporary policy relevance.
- Core narrative thread: Celebrates central bankers’ contributions to the modern economic order while documenting their “incursions and excursions into the world of fiscal policy.”

### Key findings and interpretations
- Historical continuity: The world’s modern monetary-fiscal architecture is largely a legacy of central bankers and economists from the 1980s and 1990s.
- Central bank independence: Blinder emphasizes empirical links between central bank independence and price stability and defends central bank technocrats in a “defensive crouch” for independence.
- Fiscal-monetary collaboration: The book highlights episodes of fiscal-monetary collaboration, including the 2020 global pandemic response, described as “perhaps the biggest fiscal-monetary collaboration since World War II.”
- Ideological stance: The review characterizes Blinder’s account as avowedly (neo-)Keynesian and generally sympathetic to technocrats and their political allies.

### Critique and unresolved issues
- Political agency of technocrats: The reviewer identifies a key weakness: Blinder’s defense that central bankers “are not political” is judged less persuasive.
- Worldview and interpretation: Differences in policy judgments (example given comparing Blinder with Allan Meltzer in 2009) are attributed to divergent worldviews rather than straightforward partisan labels.
- Need for deeper analysis: The reviewer urges more appreciation of “just how much politics” central bankers will practice, especially as they confront value judgments under significant uncertainty.

### Contemporary relevance and policy implications
- Current context (as of review): In 2023 the Fed is described as “leading the world in global interest rate tightening in response to record inflation,” placing central bankers at the center of an intellectual and political battle.
- Decision-making under uncertainty: Central bankers will be required to exercise value judgments in coming months and years; historical understanding is a “vital resource” but insufficient without grappling with political dimensions.
- Implicit recommendation: Policymakers and analysts should combine historical lessons with explicit analysis of technocrats’ political roles and worldviews when assessing monetary and fiscal choices.

*Reviewed by PETER CONTI-BROWN, professor of financial regulation at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.*

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_Source: https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2023/march/book-review-conti-brown.pdf_