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Journal Article
Has the Anchoring of Inflation Expectations Changed in the United States during the Past Decade?
The financial crisis and Great Recession led to dramatic shifts in U.S. monetary policy over the past decade, with potential implications for inflation expectations. Prior to the crisis, inflation expectations were well anchored. But during the crisis and recovery, the Federal Reserve turned to new policies such as large-scale asset purchases (LSAPs). In addition, the Federal Open Market Committee adopted a formal inflation target in 2012, with the stated goal of keeping longer-term inflation expectations stable. Did inflation expectations remain anchored during this period of unconventional ...
Journal Article
Forecasting Current-Quarter U.S.Exports Using Satellite Data
Forecasting export growth can be challenging. Export growth depends heavily on demand from foreign countries, which is difficult to directly measure. In practice, forecasters usually use growth in foreign gross domestic product. But GDP data are released with a significant delay, and in some economies, GDP is poorly measured. Nighttime lights data from satellites are able to overcome both of these challenges, making them potentially useful in forecasting U.S. exports. {{p}} Jun Nie and Amy Oksol use nighttime lights data to forecast current-quarter U.S. export growth and compare their ...
Working Paper
Speaking for Herself: Changing Gender Roles in Survey Response
Among married and cohabiting couples, the percentage of female respondents has increased substantially in the PSID (Panel Study of Income Dynamics) from 9% in 1968 to 60% in 2015. This shift in gender composition has taken place despite a formal policy that historically designated male heads of household as respondents. We use this shift as a case study to explore which characteristics are associated with women responding to the PSID and how different respondent gender compositions may affect data quality. First, we find that women are increasingly less likely to respond as their husband?s ...
Journal Article
Understanding Hawks and Doves
How do hawks and doves on the Federal Open Market Committee differ in their views of appropriate monetary policy and their related projections for inflation and unemployment? We find that hawks project higher inflation despite building tighter policy paths into their projections. Doves project lower inflation despite having easier policy paths, although their projections are somewhat closer to the median. In addition, hawks see a steeper inflation-unemployment tradeoff than doves up to a one-year horizon.