The economy of the United States was markedly less volatile in the past two to three decades than in prior periods. The nation enjoyed long economic expansions in each of the last three decades, interrupted by recessions in 1990-91 and 2001 that were mild by historical standards. While it has...

From 1975 to 1980, inflation in core (nonfood and nonenergy) consumer prices rose sharply as crude oil prices more than tripled. Yet, as crude oil prices quadrupled from late 2001 to 2007, core consumer price inflation remained essentially flat. Some observers have attributed the stability of...

Although many policymakers and analysts associate “core CPI inflation” with the CPI excluding food and energy, there are other measures of core consumer price inflation. Like the CPI excluding food and energy, these other measures typically attempt to identify the underlying trend in CPI...

The primary goal of Federal Reserve monetary policy is to foster maximum long-term growth in the U.S. economy by achieving price stability over time. Price stability will be achieved, according to some definitions, when inflation ceases to be a factor in the decision-making processes of...

In setting monetary policy in 1995, the Federal Reserve sought to promote sustainable economic growth and continued progress toward price stability. Toward those ends, the Federal Reserve adjusted the stance of monetary policy three times in 1995. In February, amid signs of increasing...

From early 1994 to early 1995, inflation surged in the producer price indexes for crude materials and intermediate goods. For example, inflation in intermediate goods prices rose from 2.6 percent annually in the first half of 1994 to 7.1 percent over the next nine months. At the same time,...

The primary goal of Federal Reserve monetary policy is to foster maximum long-term growth in the U.S. economy by achieving price stability over time. Price stability will be achieved, according to some definitions, when inflation ceases to be a factor in the decision-making processes of...

As the monetary aggregates have become less reliable guides for monetary policy, considerable interest has developed in identifying some other fundamental guide for policy. Many analysts argue that the best guide might be nominal gross domestic product (GDP). Some of these analysts also argue...

In the United States, there are two broad indexes of consumer prices: the consumer price index, or CPI, and the chain price index for personal consumption expenditures, or PCEPI. Because the indexes are similar in many respects, the inflation rates measured with them often move in parallel....

Over the course of the recovery from the 2001 recession, many forecasters have revised downward their expectations for job growth in the United States. The often disappointing pace of employment growth has been attributed to various forces, such as the high health-care costs faced by employers,...