Book Review: 21st Century Monetary Policy: The Federal Reserve from the Great Inflation to COVID-19

Abstract

Ben Bernanke's new book, _21st Century Monetary Policy: The Federal Reserve from the Great Inflation to COVID-19_ reflects his confidence in the Fed as a living institution. There is no late professional life confession pointing to a better way forward. The author gives a blow-by-blow account of his actions as top monetary bureaucrat and the justifications. But he gives no ground in his refusal to recognize the malaise of monetary inflation, or how in time it produces the symptoms of goods inflation and asset inflation. Bernanke does not pass harsh criticism on any past chair of the Fed, and one senses that the author as historian is straining to sustain the reputation of the Fed rather than to discover what actually happened.