Search Results
Conference Paper
The effects of globalization on inflation and their implications for monetary policy
Policymakers here and abroad cannot lose sight of a fundamental truth: In a world of separate currencies that can fluctuate against each other over time, each country?s central bank determines its inflation rate. If the FOMC were to allow the U.S. economy to run beyond its sustainable potential for some time, inflation would eventually rise. And, this pickup would become self-perpetuating if it became embedded in inflation expectations. Thus, while a better understanding of the implications of globalization will aid in our understanding of inflation dynamics, it is also clear that such ...
Conference Paper
Lessons for central bankers from a Phillips curve framework
The author's comments focus on how the lessons from recent research on the Phillips curve are helping him think about the influence of fluctuations in the prices of commodities, such as oil, on the outlook for inflation and the appropriate policy responses to such developments.
Conference Paper
The strength in consumer durables and housing
Working Paper
Central bank talk: does it matter and why?
Statements released by the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) and congressional testimony by Chairman Greenspan are found to significantly affect market interest rates, indicating that central bank "talk" conveys important information to market participants. These effects arise not only because the statements provide information about the near-term policy inclinations of the FOMC but also because the statements convey information about the outlook for the economy. By contrast, statements raising questions about asset valuations typically have not generated a significant response of those ...
Working Paper
The rise in U.S. household indebtedness: causes and consequences
The ratio of total household debt to aggregate personal income in the United States has risen from an average of 0.6 in the 1980s to an average of 1.0 so far this decade. In this paper we explore the causes and consequences of this dramatic increase. Demographic shifts, house price increases, and financial innovation all appear to have contributed to the rise. Households have become more exposed to shocks to asset prices through the greater leverage in their balance sheets, and more exposed to unexpected changes in income and interest rates because of higher debt payments relative to income. ...
Working Paper
Financial statistics for the United States and the crisis: what did they get right, what did they miss, and how should they change?
Although the instruments and transactions most closely associated with the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009 were novel, the underlying themes that played out in the crisis were familiar from previous episodes: Competitive dynamics resulted in excessive leverage and risk-taking by large, interconnected firms, in heavy reliance on short-term sources of funding to finance long-term and ultimately terribly illiquid positions, and in common exposures being shared by many major financial institutions. Understandably, in the wake of the crisis, financial supervisors and policymakers want to obtain ...
Journal Article
Policy targets and operating procedures in the 1990s