Thomas J. Sargent

The Conquest explains the Great Inflation of the 1970s and the dramatic fall in inflation starting in the early 1980s with a story about learning on the part of the central bank.

This is the work that introduced the concept of escape routes to most macroeconomists. There had been some explorations here and there previously - a puzzled Christopher Sims had reported escapes in some simulation results as far back as the late 1980s - but no one had followed up until Sargent.

It is written at show more exactly the level that is appropriate for the topic. Sargent is as clear as possible, but also doesn't spare the convergence theorems and time-series econometrics when they are necessary. He simply writes what should be written. show less