What if Jerome Powell wins the inflation fight? In the wake of the Federal Reserve’s big rate hike this week, some commentators are comparing the Fed chairman with one of his predecessors: Paul Volcker. The Fed’s leader under Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan introduced aggressive monetary tightening in the early 1980s, which thrust the U.S. into a recession but rammed inflation down to consistently low levels. That led to a decades-long period of prosperity known as the “Great Moderation.” Can the increasingly hawkish Powell have similar success? Before we address that, let’s note that it’s a critical question for ... (full story)