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Another Benefit of Trimming: Smaller Inflation Revisions
With the Dallas Fed’s Trimmed Mean Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) inflation rate, what you see in real time is closer to what you get after revision than is the case with the more conventional measure of core inflation, PCE excluding food and energy.
Working Paper
Mobility and Engagement Following the SARS-Cov-2 Outbreak
We develop a Mobility and Engagement Index (MEI) based on a range of mobility metrics from Safegraph geolocation data, and validate the index with mobility data from Google and Unacast. We construct MEIs at the county, MSA, state and nationwide level, and link these measures to indicators of economic activity. According to our measures, the bulk of sheltering-in-place and social disengagement occurred during the week of March 15 and simultaneously across the U.S. At the national peak of the decline in mobility in early April, localities that engaged in a 10% larger decrease in mobility than ...
Discussion Paper
Measuring core inflation: notes from a 2007 Dallas Fed conference
In May 2007, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas hosted a conference, organized with the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, titled "Price Measurement for Monetary Policy." The conference broadly focused on two issues - the measurement of core inflation and the measurement of inflation expectations. This paper summarizes the conference papers on core inflation.
Journal Article
Inflation measurement gives us food for thought
Global food prices are soaring. Since February 2009, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization world food price index has risen roughly 67 percent, surpassing the previous peak in June 2008 (Chart 1). The last food price surge, from early 2007 to mid-2008, prompted riots in many countries; the latest rise has also fueled riots and may have been a factor in political unrest sweeping through North Africa and the Middle East.
Average Inflation over the Pandemic Avoids 'Base-Effect' Distortions
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic early last year, the nation has seen enormous swings in consumer prices, with extraordinary declines last spring giving way to similarly eye-popping increases as the economy has reopened.
Journal Article
On the record: The art and science of measuring inflation: a conversation with Jim Dolmas
At a time when many Americans worry about rising prices, Dallas Fed Senior Economist Jim Dolmas discusses the numbers we use to track inflation in the U.S. economy.
Which Core to Believe? Trimmed Mean Versus Ex-Food-and-Energy Inflation
Twice since 2014, core personal consumption expenditures (PCE) inflation—inflation excluding food and energy—decelerated sharply, only to ultimately reverse course.
Discussion Paper
Excluding items from personal consumption expenditures inflation
Core inflation measures constructed by excluding particularly volatile items from the price index have a long history. The most common such measures are indexes excluding the prices of food and energy items. This paper attempts to shed some statistical light on the impact of excluding certain items from the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index. In particular, I am interested in the trade-off between reducing shortrun volatility (relative to the volatility of the headline index) and possibly distorting the measurement of inflation over longer horizons. Some of the questions this ...
Working Paper
The Politics of Flat Taxes
We study the political determination of flat tax systems using a workhorse macroeconomic model of inequality. There is significant variation in preferred tax policy across the wealth and income distribution. The majority voting outcome features (i) zero labor income taxation, (ii) simultaneous use of capital income and consumption taxation, and (iii) essentially zero transfers. This policy is supported by a coalition of low- and middle-wealth households. Zero labor income taxation is supported by households with below average wealth, while the middle-wealth households prefer to keep the ...
Journal Article
Monetary policy in a zero-interest-rate economy