Search Results
Journal Article
Relating commodity prices to underlying inflation: the role of expectations
Temporary supply factors may boost some commodity prices?a drought in the Midwest can jolt food costs, or a conflict in the Middle East might propel oil higher. These, in turn, can increase the overall consumer price index (CPI) and the headline inflation rate. ; Because central bank anti-inflation measures sometimes take a long time to affect prices, policymakers don?t necessarily react to short-term fluctuations in headline inflation (an overall rate that?s not seasonally adjusted). In fact, the mandate of many inflation-targeting central banks is to aim to keep headline inflation at a ...
Speech
The recovery and monetary policy
Remarks at the National Association for Business Economics Annual Meeting, New York City.
Journal Article
Happy hour economics, or how an increase in demand can produce a decrease in price
The standard supply-and-demand model is typically an economist?s most important analytical tool, but in some situations it does not capture the features of interest. For example, during ?happy hour,? bars near workplaces sell a higher-than-usual quantity of alcoholic beverages at a lower-than-usual price. This practice makes little sense using the standard competitive model, but an alternative model?the model of monopolistic competition?provides the needed analytic framework. ; This article provides a step-by-step construction of a monopolistic competition model in which many firms each ...
Journal Article
Market expectations and corn prices: looking into future to explain present
Market expectations of future supply and demand are important in determining current prices for agricultural products such as corn, which are harvested annually and stored for later use. Prices can quickly move when beliefs change?due to new data, for example?even if events far in the future are involved.
Journal Article
Commodity supplies and prices
Working Paper
A structural model of real aggregate demand
Journal Article
Why small businesses were hit harder by the recent recession
Although both large and small businesses felt the sting of job losses during the 2007-09 downturn, small firms experienced disproportionate declines. A study of the recession?s employment effect on small firms suggests that poor sales and economic uncertainty were the main reasons for their weak performance and sluggish recovery?problems that affected large firms too, but to a lesser degree. Although a tightened credit supply constrained some small firms, weak consumer demand for the firms? products and services was a more pressing factor, reducing revenues and dampening new investment ...
Conference Paper
The credit slowdown of 1989-1991: the role of supply and demand
Journal Article
Going, going, gone: setting prices with auctions