Years of low interest rates didn’t go too far

Low rate: A jogger runs past the Federal Reserve building in Washington, DC. From the end of 2008 through 2015, the Federal Reserve kept short-term interest rates at or near zero. — Reuters

THE American Economic Association’s (AEA) new online discussion forum gives the outside world the occasional glimpse of the way economists talk among themselves about important policy issues.

One example is a recent conversation thread initiated by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor and former International Monetary Fund chief economist Olivier Blanchard and joined by several other prominent researchers. The topic was whether low interest rates had led to excessive risk taking.