Dear Colin,
We had business cycles for centuries before we had central banks, so
targeting the latter must be too simple. The central Austrian idea has a lot
of merit, to wit that cycles result from an overallocation of limited
capital to what they call "higher order" capital goods. That overallocation,
however, has several causes in addition to central bank policy. For an
"accessible appraisal" I modestly (?) refer you to a new book from
Wiley-Blackwell, After the Crash, as well as the section on Macroeconomics
in www.masongaffney.org.
Mason Gaffney
[log in to unmask]