Two popular inflation indicators commonly monitored by analysts are the pace of real economic activity and the rate of growth of labor costs. It is widely believed that if the economy grows at a rate above its long-run potential or, if the rate of growth of labor costs exceeds the trend rate in...

What determines inflation? Several theoretical models of the inflation process have been advanced in the literature, and these models typically yield different predictions about the role of certain variables in determining prices. To illustrate, consider, for example, the expectations-augmented...

Some analysts contend that the introduction nationwide since 1981 of interest-bearing NOWs and Super NOW's has raised the interest elasticity of M1 demand. This article presents empirical evidence consistent with this view. The demand deposit component of Ml does not exhibit any heightened...

Recent years have witnessed very high and volatile interest rates. This has stirred a debate among analysts as to whether observed interest rates are high by historical standards. Some analysts, focusing on the before-tax real rate, argue that if the observed nominal interest rate is corrected...

Market participants recognize two opposing effects of money supply growth on interest rates: a temporary liquidity effect and a permanent expectations effect. That the latter dominates in the long run is clear — a sustained increase in money growth causes proportionally higher interest rates...

This paper presents evidence that indicates that U.S. interest rate policy during most of the 1980s can be described by a reaction function in which the federal funds rate rises if real GDP rises above trend GDP, if actual inflation accelerates, or if the long-term bond rate rises. Money growth...

Recent research has emphasized that the Federal Reserve under Chairman Alan Greenspan was forward looking, smoothed interest rates, and focused on core inflation. The semiannual monetary policy reports to U.S. Congress indicate that the measure of inflation used in monetary policy deliberations...

This article investigates empirically short-term dynamics between headline and core measures of consumer price index and personal consumption expenditure inflation over three sample periods: 1959:1-1979:1, 1979:2-2001:2, and 1985:1-2007:2. Headline and core inflation measures are co-integrated,...