Miran Paper Revives Monetarism, With Stablecoin Implications

Stephen Miran, the former Federal Reserve Governor who served from September 2025 to January 2026, has co-authored a research paper arguing the Fed should pay more attention to money supply data. The paper, titled “A return to monetarism?” and published in July 2026, was written alongside economists Peter Ireland and Nouriel Roubini.

The paper advocates for monetary aggregates like M2 and Divisia measures to play a “significant role” in policy decisions. It stops short of calling for full money-supply targeting, the approach Paul Volcker briefly tried in the early 1980s. The authors argue that monetary aggregates had already signaled excessive stimulus in the post-pandemic era, when the Fed kept rates near zero and M2 exploded. Had policymakers watched those signals, they might have tightened sooner and avoided the worst of the inflation surge.

Using updated P-star models that link money supply to long-run price levels, the authors conclude that current monetary policy appears neutrally aligned with inflation forecasts.

Kevin Warsh, the new Fed Chairman, has expressed support for monetarist principles in policy discussions. A sitting chair sympathetic to an idea, combined with a well-connected former governor publishing research backing it, raises the probability that the idea influences actual rate decisions.