We build a summary measure of labor market pressure that captures the common movement among a variety of labor market series. Obtained as the labor market series’ first principal component, this measure explains a large portion of the variability of the underlying series. For this reason, it...

Much recent commentary has centered on the importance of well-anchored inflation expectations serving as the foundation of a well-behaved inflation rate. But the difficulty in relying on this principle is that inflation expectations are not directly observable, and thus it is hard to know...

This brief examines two issues of current interest concerning inflation: (1) whether "well-anchored" expectations will help to restrain inflation's decline and whether an "un-anchoring" of expectations could lead to undesirably high inflation and (2) to what extent output (or utilization) gaps...

This brief examines an issue of current importance to the conduct of U.S. economic policy: how has the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) plan to purchase up to $600 billion of Treasury securities by June 30, 2011 affected the movement of inflation, GDP, and employment to more desirable...