Les Canadiens ont continué à ressentir les répercussions de la hausse des prix en mai, l’inflation ayant augmenté de 7,7 % d’une année à l’autre. Il s’agit de la plus forte hausse annuelle observée depuis janvier 1983 et d’une augmentation par rapport à la hausse de 6,8 % enregistrée en avril. Sans l’essence, l’IPC a … Continue reading
The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 1.0 percent in May on a seasonally adjusted basis after rising 0.3 percent in April, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 8.6 percent before seasonal adjustment. The increase was broad-based, with the … Continue reading
This paper studies the current state of inflation dynamics through the lens of the Phillips curve and assesses the degree of anchoring of inflation expectations. I first estimate a Phillips curve model with both past inflation and a constant anchor as explanatory variables over the 1999–2018 period for a variety of measures of consumer prices. … Continue reading
En février, les prix à la consommation au Canada ont augmenté de 5,7 % d’une année à l’autre, en hausse par rapport à la croissance de 5,1 % enregistrée en janvier. Il s’agit de la plus forte hausse depuis août 1991 (+6,0 %). Février a marqué le deuxième mois consécutif pendant lequel la hausse de … Continue reading
CONSUMER PRICE INDEX – FEBRUARY 2022 The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 0.8 percent in February on a seasonally adjusted basis after rising 0.6 percent in January, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 7.9 percent before seasonal adjustment. Chosen … Continue reading
In August 2020, a month in which COVID-19 containment measures continued to be lifted, the euro area annual inflation rate was -0.2%, down from 0.4% in July. A year earlier, the rate was 1.0%. European Union annual inflation was 0.4% in August 2020, down from 0.9% in July. A year earlier, the rate was 1.4%. … Continue reading
• The years leading up to COVID-19 saw persistently low inflation, … • something that came to be called by some the “missing inflation puzzle.” • Rising unemployment and weak demand are now pushing inflation down, … • though low inflation does not mean that something is automatically “missing.” • We update our Phillips curve … Continue reading
The Phillips curve is unstable and, therefore, an imperfect guide for policy. But unstable does not mean nonexistent, and imperfect does not mean useless. As long as the tools of monetary policy influence both inflation and unemployment, monetary policymakers must be cognizant of the trade-off. Mr. Powell was smart to acknowledge during his congressional hearing … Continue reading
This paper studies the current state of inflation dynamics through the lens of the Phillips curve and assesses the degree of anchoring of inflation expectations. I first estimate a Phillips curve model with both past inflation and a constant anchor as explanatory variables over the 1999– 2018 period for a variety of measures of consumer … Continue reading
I’m thinking about the rest of us, starting at the top—with the Fed—who are struggling to figure out the nature of the tradeoff as the Fed begins to contemplate unwinding. Given Chair Yellen’s (very appropriate) focus on job-market slack and thus her up-weighting of the full employment side of the mandate, there’s clearly some anxiety … Continue reading
Some have argued that the unemployment rate may overestimate labor market slack, because the long-term unemployed (LTU) are largely structurally unemployed and exert significantly less wage and price pressure. If so, then using the aggregate unemployment rate to forecast wage or price inflation may be misleading. However, this Note, along with the companion note showing … Continue reading
In the years following 2009, long-term unemployment has been very elevated while inflation has fallen only moderately, raising the question of whether the long-term unemployed exert less downward pressure on prices than the short-term unemployed, perhaps because such potential workers are disconnected from the labor market. However, empirical evidence is mixed. This analysis demonstrates that … Continue reading
Ryan Avent, having exhausted his conventional analysis of the Fed’s 2008 transcripts, turns today to a more analytical approach: counting words. I think others have already made this point without numbers, but Avent’s most powerful finding is that the Fed cares way more about inflation than it does about unemployment: There is only one winner … Continue reading
The Federal Reserve may need to let inflation run a little higher than its 2-percent target in order to bring down unemployment faster, a top Fed official said on Saturday. Strictly capping inflation at 2 percent while allowing high unemployment to linger would be an “inappropriate” approach to monetary policy, Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank President … Continue reading
What we did have was a wage-price spiral: workers demanding large wage increases (those were the days when workers actually could make demands) because they expected lots of inflation, firms raising prices because of rising costs, all exacerbated by big oil shocks. It was mainly a case of self-fulfilling expectations, and the problem was to … Continue reading