Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Market monetarism


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   keep. Consensus shifted during the debate and now is that this a valid article. Davewild (talk) 19:01, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Market monetarism

 * – ( View AfD View log )

Article is for a neologism. The only references are to blogs and an unpublished paper by the term's originator. In the paper, the author states "Throughout this paper I ahve used the term Market Monetarism. However, none of the five main Market Monetarist bloggers uses this term." Bkwillwm (talk) 05:19, 16 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete I couldn't find a single neutral third-party reliable source on this particular use of the term. The only sources are blogs by a couple people who are using the term. It certainly doesn't meet the standard of being a "school", or a Wikipedia article, until reliable sources start covering it widely. First Light (talk) 05:24, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep Change to keep, now that a notable third-party economist, Paul Krugman, has started calling it this in the last couple of days, as people have been pointing out. First Light (talk) 02:40, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
 * delete&mdash;this is an interesting case, though, because once you sort out all the false hits to "free-market monetarism," there are actually some reliable sources using the term, and even discussing it, but they uniformly seem to be treating it as a nonce-construction, and they all seem to mean something different from each other, and definitely all different from what this article's about. here is an example, where it seems to mean something like a doctrine encouraging a metamarket in monetary soundness.  but the guy even puts it in scare quotes.  here's noam chomsky using it for something else entirely, and clearly not intending it to be a technical term.  i'm guessing that lars christensen, who demonstrably did not coin this phrase in 2011, is yet another in a long line of economists to whom that description made sense for whatever they were talking about at the moment.  if that's the case, this article has the potential to be quite misleading, as well as the subject not being notable.&mdash; alf.laylah.wa.laylah (talk) 05:38, 16 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete- as a non-notable neologism. Saith the piece: The term "market monetarism" was coined by Danish economist Lars Christensen in August 2011, and was quickly adopted amongst prominent economists of the school. Ummm, not exactly... Yielding per use of the term by Krugman in a subsequent piece, cited below. Carrite (talk) 18:24, 16 October 2011 (UTC)


 * sigh&mdash;surest sign of a spa at an afd is that they post unsigned stuff to talk page instead of here. i'm tired of moving it over for them, so i'm not going to, but if you're just joining the discussion, it's over there (unless someone kinder than i moves it here).&mdash; alf.laylah.wa.laylah (talk) 20:27, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't know what sort of backward cretin would want to delete a page about a rapidly growing school of thought with monetary policy. Recently, Goldman Sachs issued a supportive study of nominal GDP targeting, while Scott Sumner, one of the movement's greybeard's, was recently noted by the New York Times as among the most influential economists in the United States. The history of people posting "delete" seems to suggest they are alienated malcontents. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thetruthman2011 (talk • contribs) 20:48, 16 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I think an article on NGDP targeting would be a good a good addition to Wikipedia. I think contributors to MM would best devote their energy to creating that article. "Market monetarism" doesn't seem to be generally acknowledged as a movement or a school of thought. A term needs to have moved on from the blogosphere before it's worthy of a Wikipedia article. If you really want to save the article, you should focus on finding published sources that use the term "market monetarism." That's what you need to meet the criteria for inclusion.--Bkwillwm (talk) 21:40, 16 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm 100% confident in the next six to twelve months, at least one major publication like the NYT will use the term "market monetarism". Paul Krugman, Brad DeLong, Bruce Bartlett, Greg Mankiw, Tyler Cowen and other notable blogging economists (many of these guys also have newspaper columns/op-ed spaces BTW) have already engaged in very public debates/discussions with Scott Sumner about market monetarism on their blogs. The only reason they haven't used the term is it was coined maybe a month or two ago (and this is the only reason I don't support keeping the article at this title). The school itself is a phenomenon of the econ blogosphere, which is why all the sources for it so far come from bloggers, but none of these bloggers are anonymous/unreliable; most if not all are bona fide academic economists (Sumner, Nick Rowe, Christensen, David Beckworth -- all advocates of market monetarism, and all either tenured or tenure-track economics professors or in Christensen's case, Head of Emerging Markets Research of a Fortune Global 500 bank). Blogging is just a far more realtime medium than journal publishing. Since opinion/news is somewhere in between, I fully expect the term to appear in the media soon, rendering this whole discussion, whatever its outcome, moot. Johnleemk | Talk 22:24, 17 October 2011 (UTC)


 * And I called it. Though since this happened within 2 days instead of 6 months, one can argue I was wrong. Johnleemk | Talk 19:41, 19 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Merge and redirect or disambiguate with an article on NGDP targeting (maybe Scott Sumner if no better alternative can be found) -- I am a market monetarist but this term isn't established enough outside the blogosphere to merit its own heading. The school of thought promoting NGDP targeting is very well-established with references to it in academic economic literature, business publications (most recently Goldman Sachs discussed it in a proprietary report), and news media. The problem is there's no well-established term for what to call this school, and although many advocate market monetarism as the term to use, it's not established outside the blogosphere yet. The subject itself definitely deserves an article. But not under this heading. (adding new comment to end of page) Johnleemk | Talk 23:02, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Business-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 00:15, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Social science-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 00:16, 17 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Don't delete—This is definitely a school, albeit a (young) child of the recent troubles. The term is only months old, but has been accepted by numerous practitioners. The school lacked a name until Christensen's proposal, which has been adopted by the school's founder (Sumner) and others. The link set needs work, but if this page is deleted, it will be back, with the same content. I've added some non-bloggy links and will continue. I don't understand the reason for retitling the article with something far more cumbersome. Lfstevens (talk) 01:07, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I think NGDP targeting would probably be an ok title in the interim until "market monetarism" or some other label for the school is clearly established. At the moment we are in a weird situation where a school of thought clearly exists and its main idea (NGDP targeting) has a label, but the school itself does not. Johnleemk | Talk 22:12, 17 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Not suitable for deletion The term is used in outside sources in mainstream newspapers and corporate papers. It is not a neologism intended in the spirit of the "no-neologism" policy. companies with shorter histories have pages on wikipedia. papers have been published for 20 years on the exact topic. its simply a new monetarism. it is called quasi-monetarism by krugman. market monetarism and NGDP are not congruent despite the fact that some editors of the page think it is. — Preceding unsigned comment added by C8to (talk • contribs) 05:21, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Please provide links or at least references for the use of "market monetarism" published sources.--Bkwillwm (talk) 05:44, 17 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Merge to a suitable article per Johnleemk. I can find at least some mentions of the term in books. utcursch | talk 11:09, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
 * everybody up there who wants to delete the article did that same gbooks search. if you look through the hits, you'll see that most of them are either for "free-market monetarism," which is a totally different thing, or else false hits on "blah blah blah market. monetarism blah blah blah."  can you sort through them, eliminate false hits, and come up with even one which uses the term in the way that this article does?&mdash; alf.laylah.wa.laylah (talk) 13:11, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. I abstain. utcursch | talk 05:25, 18 October 2011 (UTC)


 * "Expand" This article actually needs to be beefed up by leading proponents of market monetarism. And only a galaxy-class anus would suppress such a page.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thetruthman2011 (talk • contribs) 19:10, 17 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment It's interesting that this MarketWatch article today (published by The Wall Street Journal), discusses the exact concept without ever calling it "Market Monetarism". It seems that someone is trying to propagate and promote their recently made up term for something that isn't new, according to the MarketWatch article: "The idea of targeting nominal GDP isn’t new, and the Goldman economists cite a 1994 study by Robert Hall and Gregory Mankiw". I think that any relevant information (i.e., reliable sources and not blogs) could go into the Monetary policy article as a new sub-section along with many others under "Types of Monetary policy". And that it be titled something that is actually descriptive, such as the real reliable sources use (not the blogosphere), like "Targeting GDP". First Light (talk) 20:06, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Saying "market monetarism" is "made up" is a bit unfair. Scott Sumner, who is without question the leading modern proponent of NGDP targeting, favours the term and uses it widely. Because until very recently NGDP targeting was not really a concept outside theoretical academia, there wasn't any need to develop a label for its advocates/adherents. Since Sumner favours the term, I think that is a point in favour of "market monetarism". This is a neologism, but it's not simply something a bunch of Blogger or Wordpress users "made up" -- Sumner has adopted it. The only reason I don't favour keeping the article at its present title is that it's still too early to say "market monetarism" is the commonly accepted term for the NGDP targeting school. Johnleemk | Talk 22:12, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
 * You are right, it is unfair to say the term is made up, my apologies for not paying attention. As you say, it does seem like it's too early to say what the commonly accepted term will be. A descriptive term is generally the default for article titles, when there is no specific term that has wide acceptance. Why not just merge it under Monetary policy until sources start covering it more widely? I would be support that over a straight "delete". First Light (talk) 22:44, 17 October 2011 (UTC)


 * On merging i created a page nominal income target - nominal gdp target should redirect here as the nominal income target is used in literature and is more general (there are different measures of income/production) but this is not exactly the same as the market monetarism — Preceding unsigned comment added by C8to (talk • contribs) 01:46, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Aren't we arguing a lot about a little? Why not let this play out a little? The article is already prominent in Google search, and its substance is improving (possibly under pressure from the afd.) If we move the article, won't we quickly end up with a redirect from this title, anyway? I like keeping an article for the school distinct from the policy because this gem has facets beyond just NGDP targeting. Lfstevens (talk) 02:52, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
 * This article has a lot of problems. It violates Neologism and has no Reliable sources that actually use the term "market monetarist." The lack of reliable sources means much of this article is sloppy. Take a look at the "Prominent supporters." The prominent supporters tend to be from other schools Krugman (Keynesian), Bernanke (Keynesian), and Friedman (Monetarist). Friedman was also dead before this school developed. Also, Friedman is the archetypal monetarist. If he was a "market monetarist," then how is it different from monetarism? Problems like this crop up when you don't have any reliable sources to turn to--part of the reason why articles on premature topics get deleted. The fact this appears high on Google search probably has something to do with the fact no one else is using this term. We should just wait until something actually gets published on this. Otherwise we'll just have a mess of blog banter. The only cited, reliable sources are on nominal GDP targeting (and those sources don't use "market monetarism"). We should save that info, but's about it.--Bkwillwm (talk) 03:58, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Added a source for Friedman. Working on further upgrades. Keep the heat on! Lfstevens (talk) 10:20, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
 * This is the problem with simplistically assuming all blogs are unreliable. As I mentioned above, the leading people who use the term "market monetarist" to describe themselves and who promote it are Scott Sumner, Lars Christensen, Nick Rowe, and David Beckworth. Three of these guys are tenured professors (i.e. they have been published in academic journals and their work was found meritorious enough by their colleagues that they have a job for life just doing research) and Christensen, the coiner of the term, is Head of Emerging Markets Research at a Fortune Global 500 bank (and has been quoted in this capacity by news outlets like Reuters). And by WP:RS, these guys' blogs are reliable sources: "Self-published material may be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." You don't get more established expert than tenured professor. You don't get more reliable third-party publications than economics journals. I don't think the article should be at its present title, but it's ludicrous to argue that all bloggers, even academic economists, are automatically unreliable sources. Johnleemk | Talk 17:47, 18 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I still think it's ridiculous to have an article based on blog posts. This is pretty much a textbook case of a neologism article. The problem isn't just a technical application of Wikipedia policies. When you don't have published sources to base your article on, it's hard to come up with something coherent. The article has gone through some ridiculous edits (like Friedman posthumously becoming a market monetarist). The article lacks a clear explanation of what MM is, and that's not just the fault of Wikipedians. It's hard to write about a subject that hasn't been documented. You could try to piece something together from economist's blog posts, but it's clear they're still sorting out exactly what defines their group (see this post by Sumner). It's one thing to cite expert blogs when an economist is explaining textbook theory, it's another thing to cite a discussion about new ideas. We could keep up our guess work about what constitutes this "school", but I don't think that helps anyone. As C8to notes below, editors shouldn't conflate NGDP targeting with MM. This is the type of problem that will arise until we have good sources to work from. Right now, most of the references don't even mention MM, most are on NGDP targeting. If you stripped out these misused references and uncited puffery (like "The emergence of "market monetarism" also marked a shift in the discussion of macroeconomic and monetary policy to the blogosphere.") the article would effectively be deleted.--Bkwillwm (talk) 03:24, 21 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Krugman himself calls it market monetarism. Everyone knows Sumner, despite not inventing NGDP targeting, is its leading advocate, and refers to this thinking as market monetarism. If a university professor were to post something on his personal .edu page, we'd have no problem citing it as a source. But when he posts it on his blog, suddenly it's a big effing deal. The Sumner post you cite is over a month old, which as we know on Wikipedia, is a lifetime on the internet. Sumner's been referring to himself as a market monetarist and to his school as market monetarism for weeks now, as have most if not all the "market monetarist" economists Christensen mentioned as founders of the school in his working paper. Should we not say in his article that Scott Sumner describes himself as a market monetarist because of his views on income targeting? One last point: I don't think Wikipedia is in the business of deciding whether an idea is too new to be included. We're only in the business of deciding on whether a source is reliable enough to use for our content. To my mind, there is no question that a Nobel laureate writing on market monetarism on his NYT-published blog, along with a whole host of tenured economics professors and other quotable figures, constitute reliable sources. All the guys who have been pushing the NGDP targeting revolution now call themselves market monetarists. All these guys are reliable sources. We're not in the business of deciding what's textbook versus what's not because that violates WP:NPOV (Sumner and other economists sympathetic to market monetarism argue their views are the logical conclusion of textbook macro; others disagree; we can't decide who is right, we can just decide whether Sumner and his peers are reliable sources). Johnleemk | Talk 14:50, 21 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Further editing Market monetarism has been clarified to reflect the difference to term nominal income target. prior content on NIT has been removed and merged into that article. Re-deletion: this term is a neologism in the letter, but not the spirit of the law. it will be referred to by mainstream publications so premature deletion may create added un-necessary burdens. Nominal Income Target has a rich literature going back 20 years so that term is safely used. market monetarists is merely a new term for an existing school of thought that also has a rich literature of also a long time span, but no single name existed for these thoughts (combining rational expectations, monetary policy, problems with monetary aggregates, problems with interest rates).

krugman weights in on blogosphere: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/18/our-blogs-ourselves/#more-25365 -- it is somewhat ironic that wikipedia (the digital open encyclopaedia) insists on published papers when this hasn't been the practise in economics for 20 years. — Preceding unsigned comment added by C8to (talk • contribs) 02:34, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

'''Note to further editors (of the actual pages -- das ding an sich): Please read at least lars' original paper and a paper on nominal income targetting so as not to further conflate the two terms. also please don't throw in additions that are false/a stretch/unnecessary (eg. that krugman supports monetary policy in a liquidity trap??!! - he doesn't. or that milton friedman would agree with the focus on expectations and sticky prices wages). so just reference everything and clean up where appropriate always appreciated. but it doesn't always help to add wily-nily''' — Preceding unsigned comment added by C8to (talk • contribs) 13:40, 18 October 2011 (UTC)


 * As per above, people claiming WP:RS prohibits blogs entirely are wrong. Blogs from reliable third-party sources like academic economists are acceptable and have been acceptable for as far as I can remember. Johnleemk | Talk 19:57, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

based on recent events - no deletion please update each page as relevant: comment added by C8to — Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.167.234.73 (talk) 16:10, 19 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep -- after looking over the blogs of actual tenured economists who've either described themselves as market monetarists or explicitly used the term (Krugman just publicly endorsed market monetarism today) I think my original rationale for merging doesn't stand. I see no reason to delete the article now when respected academics describe themselves as market monetarists and a Nobel laureate publicly endorses the school's policy recommendations. Johnleemk | Talk 19:57, 19 October 2011 (UTC)


 * "Make a Bigger Entry" Today, 10/19/11, Paul Krugman of the NYT used the term "market monetarism" in his blog. If Krugman used the term, this "debate" is over. Only a jackanape would try to prevent an entry now.   The Krugman post

"Getting Nominal

“Market monetarists” like Scott Sumner and David Beckworth are crowing about the new respectability of nominal GDP targeting. And they have a right to be happy.

My beef with market monetarism early on was that its proponents seemed to be saying that the Fed could always hit whatever nominal GDP level it wanted; this seemed to me to vastly underrate the problems caused by a liquidity trap. My view was always that the only way the Fed could be assured of getting traction was via expectations, especially expectations of higher inflation –a view that went all the way back to my early stuff on Japan. And I didn’t think the climate was ripe for that kind of inflation-creating exercise."

That's it, game over. This is a recognized school of thought. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thetruthman2011 (talk • contribs) 02:17, 20 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete as failing WP:GNG. Sources need to be independent of the topic, meaning in this case we need sources outside the school to be talking about it. Stuartyeates (talk) 01:35, 23 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Re the above: "Independent of the subject" excludes works produced by those affiliated with the subject or its creator. For example, self-publicity, advertising, self-published material by the subject, the subject's website, autobiographies, and press releases are not considered independent.[4]" the nytimes is independant of the subject and paul krugman isnt a market monetarist, he's a keynesian that accepts we should use monetary policy in conjunction with fiscal policy. there is editorial oversight of krugman's column. goldman sachs is independent of the school of economists. its ridiculous to think this is self published material. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.35.229.129 (talk) 01:56, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep a little reluctantly, it does appear that the term is used fairly widely.  DGG ( talk ) 02:09, 24 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep. There was uncertainty for a while as to whether this viewpoint should be called "quasi-monetarism", "neo-monetarism", "new monetarism" etc. But now they seem pretty settled on "market monetarism" and it is indeed having a big impact on the current thought of economists. If the neologism fails to have legs, we can delete it then. But for now it looks encyclopedic. TGGP (talk) 03:59, 24 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep I am far from an expert on economics, but it appears to me that this has been widely discussed enough (the recent Krugman piece, for example) to justify an article. Mark Arsten (talk) 04:12, 24 October 2011 (UTC)




 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, causa sui (talk) 16:54, 24 October 2011 (UTC)




 * Relisting comment The appearance of the nod from Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman seems to have swung momentum. More input on that is appreciated. causa sui (talk) 16:58, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep—Given that multiple, highly reputable authors not part of the school have used the term in just the last few days, I don't understand what part of the deletist argument remains relevant. Notably, several of the authors have not only used the term, but done so in support of many its claims, increasing the school's ability to thrive. Lfstevens (talk) 19:31, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.