Kevin, I think that you are right about some writers, perhaps about 
most. I do not have the patience to do the proper sampling. In any case, 
there are some prominent articles that identify monetary policy as a 
demand shock. I had forgotten this. So I should have stipulated my 
definitions instead of claiming that they are the accepted ones.

At the same time, there is quite a bit of ambiguity as well. Some 
writers do not express the notion that monetary policy is a demand 
shock. On the contrary, they write as if monetary policy is a way to 
correct for a supply shock. Some also write about fiscal policy as a 
potential way to correct. The significant thing to me is that I have 
never read a recommendation to use a demand shock to offset a supply 
shock or another demand shock, although such language seems to be the 
logical way to describe stabilization policy according to the "accepted" 
terminology. After all, if there is a shock, must not someone be 
shocked? And who besides the policy maker is a logical candidate?

The whole idea of a shock seems a bit weird, doesn't it? Why call a 
change in market supply a "shift" and a change in aggregate supply a 
"shock?" This language seems more journalistic than scientific. Or 
perhaps it is a special game-playing language among the "scientists" 
that has been adapted by the teachers for their own purposes. If true, 
wouldn't that be shocking?

Fortunately, whether economic policy is included in or excluded from the 
class of demand and supply shocks is not relevant to the main points of 
my previous post.

Where do you come down on the usefulness of the AD/AS construct to 
represent a dynamic situation? First, is there any exogenous phenomena 
other than an unexpected change in the quantity of money that could 
meaningfully correspond exclusively to an increase or decrease in 
aggregate demand? (Beginning with a equilibrium, people cannot demand 
more of all consumer goods unless they are willing to supply more 
work.). Second is there any exogenous phenomena that can exclusively 
cause a decrease in aggregate supply, without leading to a change in the 
target real output?

I will grant you (rhetorically) that one can define terms anyway one 
wants. But I am not interested in an "if this, then that" answer. I am 
interested in concepts and analysis that is relevant to undergraduate 
students but at the same time not easily shown to be a fallacy of 
composition or some other type of fallacy.

By the way, didn't you say that you are writing a macro text? How do you 
treat the AD/AS stuff in your text?


Pat Gunning