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Working Paper
Trimmed-mean inflation statistics: just hit the one in the middle
Meyer, Brent; Venkatu, Guhan (2012)
This paper reinvestigates the performance of trimmed-mean inflation measures some 20 years since their inception, asking whether there is a particular trimmed mean measure that dominates the median CPI. Unlike previous research, we evaluate the performance of symmetric and asymmetric trimmed-means using a well-known equality of prediction test. We fi nd that there is a large swath of trimmed-means that have statistically indistinguishable performance. Also, while the swath of statistically similar trims changes slightly over different sample periods, it always includes the median CPI?an ...
Working Papers (Old Series) , Paper 1217

Working Paper
The Usefulness of the Median CPI in Bayesian VARs Used for Macroeconomic Forecasting and Policy
Meyer, Brent; Zaman, Saeed (2016-11-01)
In this paper we investigate the forecasting performance of the median Consumer Price Index (CPI) in a variety of Bayesian vector autoregressions (BVARs) that are often used for monetary policy. Until now, the use of trimmed-mean price statistics in forecasting inflation has often been relegated to simple univariate or Phillips curve approaches, thus limiting their usefulness in applications that require consistent forecasts of multiple macro variables. We find that inclusion of an extreme trimmed-mean measure?the median CPI?improves the forecasts of both core and headline inflation (CPI and ...
FRB Atlanta Working Paper , Paper 2016-13

Discussion Paper
How Businesses Set Prices—In Their Own Words
Bruine de Bruin, Wändi; Dogra, Keshav; Heise, Sebastian; Knotek, Edward S.; Meyer, Brent; Rich, Robert W.; Schoenle, Raphael; Topa, Giorgio; Van der Klaauw, Wilbert (2025-11-24)
There has been a lot of interest in firms’ pricing decisions in the past few years—both during the inflation surge of 2021-23 and in the more recent rounds of tariff increases. In this post, we let firms speak for themselves about what factors they consider when adjusting prices in response to various shocks. The analysis is based on an ongoing research project, joint with the Atlanta and Cleveland Federal Reserve Banks, on how businesses set prices and the extent of passthrough of cost increases. In particular, we leverage the qualitative portion of the study based on open-ended ...
Liberty Street Economics , Paper 20251124

Working Paper
Lessons for forecasting unemployment in the United States: use flow rates, mind the trend
Meyer, Brent; Tasci, Murat (2015-02-01)
This paper evaluates the ability of autoregressive models, professional forecasters, and models that incorporate unemployment flows to forecast the unemployment rate. We pay particular attention to flows-based approaches?the more reduced-form approach of Barnichon and Nekarda (2012) and the more structural method in Tasci (2012)?to generalize whether data on unemployment flows are useful in forecasting the unemployment rate. We find that any approach that considers unemployment inflow and outflow rates performs well in the near term. Over longer forecast horizons, Tasci (2012) appears to be a ...
FRB Atlanta Working Paper , Paper 2015-1

Working Paper
The Impact of Supply Chain Disruptions on Business Expectations during the Pandemic
Meyer, Brent; Prescott, Brian; Sheng, Xuguang (2023-09-28)
Using the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta's Business Inflation Expectations (BIE) survey, which has been continuously collecting subjective probability distributions over own-firm future unit costs since October 2011, we document two facts about firms' marginal cost expectations and risk during the COVID-19 pandemic. First, in the early months of the pandemic, firms, on net, saw COVID-19 largely as a demand shock and lowered their one-year-ahead expectations. However, as the pandemic wore on, firms' one-year-ahead unit cost expectations rose sharply alongside their views on supply chain and ...
FRB Atlanta Working Paper , Paper 2023-12

Businesses Are in Uncharted Waters
Parker, Nicholas B.; Meyer, Brent (2020-04-17)
Inflation expectations in our April Business Inflation Expectations (BIE) survey fell to an all-time low (going back to October 2011) of 1.4 percent, plunging far below its next lowest level of 1.7 percent (most recently observed in February 2020). Perhaps unsurprisingly, firms have bigger worries on their minds. And our boss, President Raphael Bostic, agreed, noting on Wednesday that "inflation at this point is not something I'm particularly worried about."
Macroblog

Journal Article
Access to Credit for Small and Minority-Owned Businesses
Schweitzer, Mark E.; Meyer, Brent (2022-03-22)
Equal access to small-business credit is a critical underpinning to equity in economic opportunity; however, it is difficult to regularly assess the fairness of credit provision. Prior research has focused on the Federal Reserve Board’s Survey of Small Business Finance, but the most recent data from this source is from 2003. This article provides preliminary results on new credit access questions added to the Census Bureau’s 2021 Annual Business Survey. We find that minority-owned businesses generally were just as likely to apply for credit in 2020, but Black-, Asian-, and Hispanic-owned ...
Economic Commentary , Volume 2022 , Issue 04 , Pages 6

Journal Article
In Optimism We Trust? Explaining the Disconnect between Post-Election Optimism and Own-Firm Expectations
Meyer, Brent; Weitz, Daniel J. (2025-03-04)
We randomly split the CFO survey panel into two separate surveys around the 2024 US elections to discern whether the results of the elections had any impact on financial decision makers' expectations. Respondents to the post-election survey reported sharply higher optimism about the US economy and an improved macroeconomic outlook relative to the pre-election responses. In contrast, own-firm optimism and revenue growth expectations were not meaningfully changed between the two surveys. Among many possible reasons for this disconnect, we highlight the expected impact of the new ...
Policy Hub , Volume 2025 , Issue 2 , Pages 10

Journal Article
Forecasting inflation? Target the middle
Zaman, Saeed; Meyer, Brent; Venkatu, Guhan (2013-04)
The Median CPI is well-known as an accurate predictor of future infl ation. But it?s just one of many possible trimmed-mean inflation measures. Recent research compares these types of measures to see which tracks future inflation best. Not only does the Median CPI outperform other trims in predicting CPI inflation, it also does a better job of predicting PCE inflation, the FOMC?s preferred measure, than the core PCE.
Economic Commentary , Issue Apr

Working Paper
Estimates of Cost-Price Passthrough from Business Survey Data
Dogra, Keshav; Heise, Sebastian; Knotek, Edward S.; Meyer, Brent; Rich, Robert W.; Schoenle, Raphael; Topa, Giorgio; Van der Klaauw, Wilbert; Bruine de Bruin, Wändi (2023-06-02)
We examine businesses' price-setting practices via open-ended interviews and in a quantitative survey module with business contacts from the Federal Reserve Banks of Atlanta, Cleveland, and New York in December 2022 and January 2023. Businesses indicated that their prices were strongly influenced by demand, a desire to maintain steady profit margins, and wages and labor costs. Survey respondents expected reduced growth in costs and prices of about 5 percent on average over the next year. Backward-looking, forward-looking, and hypothetical scenarios reveal average cost-price passthrough of ...
Working Papers , Paper 23-14

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