Has the Beige Book become disconnected from economic data?
The Federal Reserve's Beige Book, a key tool for identifying U.S. business-cycle shifts, has traditionally aligned with economic data. However, postpandemic, its economic characterizations often appear weaker than what hard data indicated, raising concerns of divergence from official statistics.
May 27, 2025
Monetary policy implementation and the consolidated government balance sheet
This essay examines the trade-offs between different monetary policy implementation methods through the lens of the consolidated government balance sheet and income statement
April 15, 2025
Research Department Working Papers
Tempting FAIT: Flexible Average Inflation Targeting and the Post-COVID U.S. Inflation Surge
In August 2020, the Federal Reserve replaced Flexible Inflation Targeting (FIT) with Flexible Average Inflation Targeting (FAIT), introducing make-up strategies that allow inflation to temporarily exceed the 2% target. Using a synthetic control approach, this paper estimates that FAIT raised CPI inflation by about 1 percentage point and core CPI inflation by 0.5 percentage points, suggesting a moderate impact net of food and energy and a largely temporary effect. The findings are consistent with the hypothesis of a steeper-than-expected post-pandemic Phillips curve in the New Keynesian model.
April 09, 2025
Globalization Institute Working Paper
Living Up to Expectations: The Effectiveness of Forward Guidance and Inflation Dynamics Post-Global Financial Crisis
This paper studies the effectiveness of forward guidance when central banks face private agents with heterogeneous expectations allowing for a degree of bounded rationality.
April 03, 2025
Strong U.S. employment driven by sectors less sensitive to business cycles
The U.S. has enjoyed strong payroll job gains in the past couple of years despite generally restrictive monetary policy. The sectoral composition of employment reveals job growth has been concentrated in areas that are the least sensitive to national employment fluctuations over the business cycle.
April 01, 2025
Research Department Working Papers
Trade Costs and Inflation Dynamics
Using bilateral trade flows from detailed global input-output data and a gravity framework, this paper estimates trade cost shocks and their effects on CPI inflation.
March 04, 2025
Evidence suggests U.S. house price/rent ratio, real home prices to decline
The ratio of house prices to rents in the U.S. has risen 20 percent since first quarter 2020, coinciding with the beginning of the pandemic. The ratio is near its previous high in 2006. The future course of inflation may well be influenced by how this now-lofty ratio reverts to a more usual level.
February 25, 2025
Speech by President Lorie K. Logan
Efficient and effective central bank balance sheets
At a Bank of England conference on central bank balance sheets, President Lorie Logan laid out two key principles: efficient and effective. It’s heartening that central banks around the world have converged on some approaches to uphold these twin principles.
February 25, 2025
Is inflation still slowing? Early 2025 data pivotal to outlook
January inflation data were stronger in 2023 and 2024 than forecasters expected, even after more encouraging results had been reported for the ends of 2022 and 2023. Rather than reflecting seasonal adjustment difficulties, this pattern may be caused by a large share of firms changing prices at the start of a new year.
February 11, 2025
Speech by President Lorie K. Logan
Opening remarks for panel on ‘Future challenges for monetary policy in the Americas’
At the Bank for International Settlements’ Chapultepec Conference, Dallas Fed President Lorie K. Logan discussed future challenges for monetary policy in the Americas and the role of the neutral interest rate.
February 06, 2025