This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, July 27th, 2022.

I'm Caleb Brown.

The Federal Reserve's dual mandate has led the agency astray,

according to economist Thomas Hogan.

Hogan's a senior research faculty at the American Institute for Economic Research.

He was formerly the Chief Economist for the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban

Affairs. We spoke last month.

The Federal Reserve has a dual mandate, some would argue a triple mandate, and you can look back

through the archives of the Cato Daily Podcast to see the problems with the dual mandate that is full employment and inflation.

And the Federal Reserve has, we can argue, blown it

when it comes to inflation.

But I would want to... when it comes to inflation.

But I would want to give them a little bit of grace given

2008 and 2009 where we had this massive

shift in the economy and no inflation. And so now here we are, it's 2022.

We have four decade high inflation right now and you would argue in part that the reason we have

high inflation is the Federal Reserve has taken its eye off the ball.

What does that mean? Well, like you said, they have a dual mandate of stable prices and full employment and so that's already a bit of a problem

that it gives them some leeway that it's not clear what they're really trying to achieve.

Economists have been talking for years

about how the Fed should really be following

some kind of monetary policy rule

...