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Journal Article
Inflation: Stress-Testing the Phillips Curve
The well-known Phillips curve describes inflation as a persistent process that depends on public expectations of future inflation and economic slack, a measure of how stretched the economy?s resources are. The role of each component has changed over time. In particular, maintaining the public?s expectations that the Federal Reserve is committed to an inflation target of 2% has grown in importance over the slack component, in part because realigning expectations is costly to undo. Such considerations are important as the Federal Reserve evaluates its future policy options.
Journal Article
Does Ultra-Low Unemployment Spur Rapid Wage Growth?
The unemployment rate ended 2018 at just under 4%, substantially lower than most estimates of the natural rate. Could such an ostensibly tight labor market lead to a sharp pickup in wage growth from its recent moderate pace, such that the relationship between wage growth and unemployment is not always linear? Investigations using state-level data show no economically significant nonlinearity between wage growth and unemployment that would predict an abrupt jump in wage growth.
Journal Article
Why Is Inflation Low Globally?
A hot economy eventually boosts inflation. Such is the simple wisdom of the Phillips curve. Yet inflation across developed countries has been remarkably weak since the 2008 global financial crisis, even though unemployment rates are near historical lows. What is behind this recent disconnect between inflation and unemployment? Contrasting the experiences of developed and developing economies before and after the financial crisis shows that broader factors than monetary policy are at play. Inflation has declined globally, and this trend preceded the financial crisis.