Journal Article
The federal funds rate as an indicator of monetary policy: evidence from the 1980s
Emery, Kenneth M.; Balke, Nathan S. (1994-01)
Recently, several economists have argued that movements in the federal funds rate are a good proxy for changes in monetary policy. In this article, Nathan Balke and Kenneth Emery critically examine this view and the evidence supporting it. Using simple vector autoregressions, they find that before 1980 the correlations between the federal funds rate and other important macroeconomic variables are consistent with a traditional monetary policy interpretation of the federal funds rate. However, they show that after 1982 the relationships between the federal funds rate and other macroeconomic ...
Economic and Financial Policy Review , Issue Q I , Pages 1-15

Journal Article
Understanding the price puzzle
Emery, Kenneth M.; Balke, Nathan S. (1994-10)
Recent developments in measuring the stance of monetary policy have highlighted an interesting puzzle--namely, that an unexpected tightening in monetary policy leads to an increase rather than a decrease in the price level. In this article, Nathan Balke and Kenneth Emery present evidence on the price puzzle and discuss possible explanations for it. ; Balke and Emery find that the most plausible explanation is that, during the 1960s and '70s, monetary policy was not implemented in a way that fully offset inflationary supply shocks. During this period, monetary policy would tighten in response ...
Economic and Financial Policy Review , Issue Q IV , Pages 15-26

Journal Article
Is there a stable relationship between capacity utilization and inflation?
Emery, Kenneth M.; Chang, Chih-Ping (1997-01)
Many policymakers and financial market participants use the Federal Reserve's industrial capacity utilization rate as an indicator of future changes in inflation. During the past few years, however, the usefulness of the utilization rate as an inflation indicator has come under scrutiny. ; In this article, Kenneth Emery and Chih-Ping Chang examine capacity utilization's power to predict changes in inflation, with a focus on whether the relationship is stable over time. They find that while there was a positive forecasting relationship between capacity utilization and changes in consumer price ...
Economic and Financial Policy Review , Issue Q I , Pages 14-20

Journal Article
Do wages help predict inflation?
Emery, Kenneth M.; Chang, Chih-Ping (1996-01)
In the financial press, productivity-related wages are often cited as an inflation indicator. For example, recently slow rates of wage growth have been noted as a factor that will keep inflation rates low in the future. While inflation and wage growth do appear to be highly correlated over longer time periods, it is not clear whether movements in wage growth precede movements in inflation, thereby providing predictive content for future inflation. In this article, Kenneth Emery and Chih-Ping Chang examine the usefulness of wage growth as a predictor of inflation, as well as carry out a ...
Economic and Financial Policy Review , Issue Q I , Pages 2-9

Journal Article
Do interest rates help predict inflation?
Emery, Kenneth M.; Koenig, Evan F. (1992-10)
Accurate forecasts of inflation are important to policymakers and to individuals who must make decisions on the basis of expectations about the future purchasing power of the dollar. ; Recent research on forecasting inflation has shown that interest rates, by themselves, may provide useful information about future inflation. In this article, Kenneth M. Emery and Evan F. Koenig investigate whether interest rates contain information about future inflation beyond that found in traditional inflation-forecasting models. In other words, does adding interest rates to traditional inflation models ...
Economic and Financial Policy Review , Issue Q IV , Pages 1-17

Journal Article
Modeling the effects of inflation on the demand for money
Emery, Kenneth M. (1991-03)
Because the Federal Reserve is responsible for controlling the value of money, economic policymakers are very concerned with forecasting the public's demand for money. Inflation is one of several factors that have made forecasting the demand for money increasingly difficult over the past fifteen years. In this article, Kenneth M. Emery reviews the ways that inflation may affect the demand for money, and he examines how well traditional money-demand models have captured these effects in the postwar period. ; Emery finds that money-demand models would have performed better during 1953-79 had ...
Economic and Financial Policy Review , Issue Mar , Pages 17-29

Journal Article
Misleading indicators? Using the composite leading indicators to predict cyclical turning points
Emery, Kenneth M.; Koenig, Evan F. (1991-07)
The U.S. Department of Commerce composite index of leading indicators (CLI) is a widely cited and influential economic series. In this article, Evan F. Koenig and Kenneth M. Emery examine how well movements in the CLI predict business-cycle turning points. Using data that actually would have been available to a forecaster, Koenig and Emery find that the CLI has provided no reliable advance warning of recessions and expansions. Further, in interpreting movements in the CLI, simple rules of thumb have often performed as well as more sophisticated forecasting methodologies. ; While the evidence ...
Economic and Financial Policy Review , Issue Jul , Pages 1-14

Journal Article
Controlling inflation: a historical perspective
Emery, Kenneth M. (1993-07)
Southwest Economy , Issue Jul , Pages 4-5

Journal Article
Inflation and monetary restraint: too little, too late?
Emery, Kenneth M.; Balke, Nathan S. (1995-01)
Southwest Economy , Issue Jan , Pages 3-5

Journal Article
Investment and housing drive 1994 growth
Emery, Kenneth M. (1994-01)
Southwest Economy , Issue Jan , Pages 1-4