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Journal Article
Evaluating Monetary Policy with Inflation Bands and Horizons
Inflation targeting has become the dominant way countries approach setting monetary policy goals. However, central banks differ in how they conduct that policy and how they evaluate their success in meeting a stated inflation goal. A new assessment method combines a percentage range around a target, known as an inflation tolerance band, with central banks stating how long it will take for high or low inflation to return to that range, known as a time horizon. Comparing previously projected horizons with realized horizons can be used to evaluate policy success.
Working Paper
Uncertainty and Fiscal Cliffs
Large pending fiscal policy changes, such as in the United States in 2012 or in Japan with consumption taxes, often generate considerable uncertainty. ?Fiscal cliff? episodes have several features: an announced possible future change, a skewed set of possible out-comes, the possibility that implementation may not actually occur, and a known resolution date. This paper develops a model capturing these features and studies their impact. Fiscal cliff uncertainty shocks have immediate impact, with a magnitude that depends on the probability of implementation, which generates economic volatility. ...
Working Paper
Communicating Monetary Policy Rules
Despite the ubiquity of inflation targeting, central banks communicate their frameworks in a variety of ways. No central bank explicitly expresses their conduct via a policy rule, which contrasts with models of policy. Central banks often connect theory with practice by publishing inflation forecasts that can, in principle, implicitly convey their reaction function. We return to this central idea to show how a central bank can achieve the gains of a rule-based policy without publicly stating a specific rule. The approach requires central banks to specify an inflation target, inflation ...
Journal Article
Middle-income tax rates: trends and prospects
The federal tax liabilities of different income groups change constantly in response to new tax laws and shifting economic circumstances. For example, in recent years, Congress has lowered individual income tax rates, increased child and dependent care credits, and reduced taxes on dividends and capital gains. Much of the economic analysis and political debate about these federal tax changes concerns the impact on upper- or lower-income groups, while the impact on middle-income taxpayers sometimes gets forgotten. ; The trends in tax rates can be difficult for middle-income taxpayers, ...
Journal Article
What is the effect of financial stress on economic activity
Despite the apparent risk that financial stress poses to the real economy, the relationship between financial stress and economic activity is complex and not well understood. The experience of the United States and other countries has shown that businesses and households often pull back on new investments and purchases in response to the tighter credit conditions and greater uncertainty caused by financial stress. Yet important gaps remain in our understanding of this critical relationship. ; One potential complication is that the relationship may change when financial stress is elevated and ...
Journal Article
Evaluating a Year of Oil Price Volatility
Troy Davig, Nida Cakir Melek, Jun Nie, Lee Smith, and Didem Tuzemen find changes in expectations of future oil supply relative to demand are the main drivers of the recent oil price decline.
Journal Article
Detecting recessions in the Great Moderation: a real-time analysis
The nature of the business cycle, particularly in the United States, has changed dramatically over the past several decades. In the 1970s and early 1980s, the U.S. economy often whipsawed up and down. Since then, real economic activity stabilized considerably, entering a period economists call the ?Great Moderation.? With the ups and downs of the economy becoming less dramatic, it has become harder to determine in real-time when the economy dips into recession. ; Economists have a variety of methods to determine when the economy is entering a recession. These methods range from directly ...
Journal Article
The shadow labor supply and its implications for the unemployment rate
In the wake of the Great Recession there has been a sharp rise in the number of people who indicate they want a job, but are not actively seeking one. This group, on the periphery of the labor market, may be viewed as a "shadow labor supply." Since they are not actively seeking work, they are not counted by the government as unemployed and not considered part of the labor force. But if many start seeking jobs as the economy recovers, the unemployment rate could rise or at least slow its descent. Davig and Mustre-del-Ro analyze possible flow rates from this group and other non-employed ...
Journal Article
Accounting for changes in the U.S. budget deficit
After rising substantially during the Great Recession, the U.S. federal budget deficit has narrowed the past few years. While policy reforms and cyclical economic recovery have certainly contributed to this improvement, an array of temporary factors such as Federal Reserve remittances, dividends from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the unwinding of one-time stimulus packages may have had a notable effect. To understand the driving factors behind the improvement in the deficit, Davig and Redmond introduce a framework to gauge the contributions of temporary factors, automatic stabilizers, and ...
Journal Article
Bank consolidation and merger activity following the crisis.
Michal Kowalik, Troy Davig, Charles S. Morris, and Kristen Regehr analyze the financial characteristics of acquired community banks from 2011 to 2014.