The Federal Reserve: Recent History & Monetary Policy with Former St. Louis Fed President James Bullard

Jon Hartley and James Bullard discuss Bullard’s career in monetary policy, the history of the St. Louis Fed, serving on the FOMC during the Bernanke, Yellen and Powell Feds, inflation targeting, forward guidance, macroeconomic modeling, as well as how the Fed responded to the Great Recession, COVID-19, and the early 2020s inflation.

Recorded on November 4, 2024.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS:

James “Jim” Bullard is a macroeconomist and was president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis from 2008-2023. In 2023, he became the inaugural dean of the reimagined Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr. School of Business at Purdue University. He also serves as special advisor to the president of the university, reporting to President Mung Chiang in that capacity. Bullard is also a distinguished professor of service and professor of economics in the Daniels School.

Before becoming president, Bullard served in various roles at the St. Louis Fed, starting in 1990 as an economist in the research division and later serving as vice president and deputy director of research for monetary analysis. 

Born in Wisconsin, Bullard grew up in Forest Lake, Minnesota, and received his doctorate in economics from Indiana University in Bloomington. He holds Bachelor of Science degrees in economics and in quantitative methods and information systems from St. Cloud State University in St. Cloud, Minnesota.

Jon Hartley is a Research Assistant at the Hoover Institution and an economics PhD Candidate at Stanford University, where he specializes in finance, labor economics, and macroeconomics. He is also currently a Research Fellow at the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity (FREOPP) and a Senior Fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. Jon is also a member of the Canadian Group of Economists, and serves as chair of the Economic Club of Miami.

Jon has previously worked at Goldman Sachs Asset Management as well as in various policy roles at the World Bank, IMF, Committee on Capital Markets Regulation, US Congress Joint Economic Committee, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and the Bank of Canada. 

Jon has also been a regular economics contributor for National Review Online, Forbes, and The Huffington Post and has contributed to The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, Globe and Mail, National Post, and Toronto Star among other outlets. Jon has also appeared on CNBC, Fox Business, Fox News, Bloomberg, and NBC, and was named to the 2017 Forbes 30 Under 30 Law & Policy list, the 2017 Wharton 40 Under 40 list, and was previously a World Economic Forum Global Shaper.

ABOUT THE SERIES:

Each episode of Capitalism and Freedom in the 21^st Century, a video podcast series and the official podcast of the Hoover Economic Policy Working Group, focuses on getting into the weeds of economics, finance, and public policy on important current topics through one-on-one interviews. Host Jon Hartley asks guests about their main ideas and contributions to academic research and policy. The podcast is titled after Milton Friedman‘s famous 1962 bestselling book Capitalism and Freedom, which after 60 years, remains prescient from its focus on various topics which are now at the forefront of economic debates, such as monetary policy and inflation, fiscal policy, occupational licensing, education vouchers, income share agreements, the distribution of income, and negative income taxes, among many other topics.

For more information, visit: capitalismandfreedom.substack.com/