Why Targeting HDL Should Work as a Therapeutic Tool, but Has Not

COMMENTARY Why the Federal Reserve Should Not Adopt Inflation Targeting

Inflation targeting has become one of the most significant developments of recent decades in both the theory and the practice of monetary policy. A rapidly expanding literature has analysed the a priori properties of various ‘inflation targeting’ strategies, and an increasing number of central banks around the world – the Bank of Canada, the Bank of England, the Swedish Riksbank, and numerous o...

Why the Cochrane risk of bias tool should not include funding source as a standard item.

On Why the United States Should Not Attack Iran: A Conservative, Evangelical Christian Response

In the midst of American intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq, and in the aftermath of the presidential election in Iran, support for American involvement in Iran has increased in some circles. In this piece, our desire is to give a conservative, evangelical Christian response to why America should not support any military action against Iran. A position advocated by many of us is “Just War.” I...

Why Learning Has Aha-Moments and Why We Should Also Reward Effort, Not Just Results

Traditionally, in machine learning, the quality of the result improves steadily with time (usually slowly but still steadily). However, as we start applying reinforcement learning techniques to solve complex tasks – such as teaching a computer to play a complex game like Go – we often encounter a situation in which for a long time, then is no improvement, and then suddenly, the system’s efficie...

Discussion of Inflation Targeting and Japan: Why has the Bank of Japan not Adopted Inflation Targeting?

This paper argues that the Bank of Japan shrank from doing the right thing because it required the adoption of unconventional policies that might lose the Bank its newly acquired independence. Taka Ito frankly recognises that this argument has a problem: the Bank of Japan adopted two and a half of the recommended unconventional policies: increasing excess reserves, buying government bonds and b...