Search Results
Working Paper
Measurement bias in the HICP: what do we know and what do we need to know?
The Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) is the primary measure of inflation in the euro area, and plays a central role in the policy deliberations of the European Central Bank (ECB). The ECB defines its Treaty mandate of price stability as "?a year-on-year increase in the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) for the euro area of below 2 percent [?] to be maintained over the medium term." Among the rationales given for defining price stability as prevailing at some positive measured inflation rate is the possibility that the HICP as published incorporates measurement errors of ...
Global Perspectives: Epidemiologists Robert Haley and Trish Perl on Fighting COVID-19
Haley, Perl and Dallas Fed President Rob Kaplan discussed the ongoing pandemic, how best to contain it and prospects for a vaccine.
Working Paper
A first assessment of some measures of core inflation for the euro area
Core inflation plays an important role in the deliberations of monetary policymakers. In this paper we evaluate a number of measures of core inflation constructed using euro area data. In addition to the traditional exclusion-type core measures, we examine two newer ones, documenting their properties and evaluating their performance in terms of their ability to track underlying or trend inflation in real time. We focus on core measures derived from the Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) as the European Central Bank has chosen to define its mandate for price stability in terms of this ...
Report
Inflation Dynamics in a Post-Crisis Globalized Economy
The Great Recession that accompanied the global financial crisis?from which many advanced economies are still struggling to recover?prompted extraordinary policy responses from central banks around the world. Some of these responses were coordinated, but all were directed at fulfilling purely domestic mandates for price stability and, in some cases, maximum employment. Fears that the dramatic expansion of central bank balance sheets would lead to higher inflation at the consumer level have so far proven unfounded, whether due to still-abundant slack in many countries or well-anchored ...
Global Perspectives: Marvin E. Odum on the COVID-19 Fight, Energy Outlook
Odum and Dallas Fed President Robert S. Kaplan participated in a moderated conversation with Krys Boyd of KERA and discussed the ongoing pandemic and how best to contain it.
Working Paper
Global slack as a determinant of U.S. inflation
Resource utilization, or "slack," is widely held to be an important determinant of inflation dynamics. As the world has become more globalized in recent decades, some have argued that the concept of slack that is relevant is global rather than domestic (the "global slack hypothesis"). This line of argument is consistent with standard New Keynesian theory. However, the empirical evidence is fragile, at best, possibly because of a disconnect between empirical and theory-consistent measures of output gaps.
Report
First steps: developing a research agenda on globalization and monetary policy
This essay reviews some of the issues we see as crucial to advancing our understanding of globalization?s implications for U.S. monetary policy and highlights some of the research we have been doing to shed light on these issues.
Journal Article
The sluggish recovery from the Great Recession: why there is no ‘V’ rebound this time
Rather than seeing the V-shaped recovery that might have been expected given the severity of the recent downturn, the nation is undergoing a more protracted process.
Working Paper
Shock-Dependent Exchange Rate Pass-Through: Evidence Based on a Narrative Sign Approach
This paper studies shock-dependent exchange rate pass-through for Japan with a Bayesian structural vector autoregression model. We identify the shocks by complementing the traditional sign and zero restrictions with narrative sign restrictions related to the Plaza Accord. We find that the narrative sign restrictions are highly informative, and substantially sharpen and even change the inferences of the structural vector autoregression model originally identified with only the traditional sign and zero restrictions. We show that there is a significant variation in the exchange rate ...