CAMBRIDGE  —  The latest figures from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) show that the US economy has experienced two consecutive quarters of negative real (inflation-adjusted) GDP growth. That accords with a popular definition of a recession.

CAMBRIDGE — When considering what caused the sharp increase in the US inflation rate from late 2020 to today, my initial instinct was to focus on aggressive monetary policy, following Milton Friedman’s famous dictum that, “inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon”

CAMBRIDGE — Five decades ago, the United States’ biggest macroeconomic problem was high inflation, which averaged more than 6% in the 1970s and rose to as high as 10% by the end of the decade.