Changing central banks—and governments

TO GET A sense of how policymakers used to think about unemployment, consider the Jackson Hole meeting, a jamboree for central bankers, in August 1994. One speaker, Alan Blinder, felt it necessary to remind his colleagues that “In my view, central banks...do indeed have a role in reducing unemployment,” not just in reducing inflation. Many in the audience thought that he was a bold radical. “I was called an outlier, and some worse words,” says Mr Blinder, who at the time was vice-chairman of the Federal Reserve. The sky-high inflation of the 1970s was still fresh in the minds of many participants. Like Paul Volcker, the Fed’s chairman in 1979-87, they believed that conquering inflation was their sole true calling, no matter the collateral damage.