The impact on the broader economy and financial markets of the problems in the subprime markets seems likely to be contained.

The benefit of appointing a hawkish central banker is the increased inflation-fighting credibility that such an appointment brings.

Inflation is certainly low and stable and, measured in unemployment and labour-market slack, the economy has made a lot of progress. The pace of growth is disappointingly slow, mostly because productivity growth has been very slow, which is not really something amenable to monetary policy. It comes from changes in technology, changes in worker skills and a variety of other things, but not monetary policy, in particular.

A money-financed tax cut is essentially equivalent to Milton Friedman's famous 'helicopter drop' of money.

The more important reason is that the research itself provides an important long-run perspective on the issues that we face on a day-to-day basis.

A meritocracy is a system in which the people who are the luckiest in their health and genetic endowment; luckiest in terms of family support, encouragement and, probably, income; luckiest in their educational and career opportunities; and luckiest in so many other ways difficult to enumerate - these are the folks who reap the largest rewards.

How much would you pay to avoid a second Depression?