Search Results
Newsletter
The Evolution of Disagreement About Long-Run Inflation, 2007–24
In this article, we examine disagreement about long-run U.S. inflation in two closely watched surveys over the period 2007–24.1 This was a tumultuous period. The economy was hit by two very large shocks: the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) in 2007–08 and the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020–21. Unemployment soared from 5% to 10% over the 2008–09 period and took six years to reach pre-crisis levels. In March 2020, unemployment surged to 10% from historically low levels, but it returned to pre-pandemic levels in the second half of 2021. Inflation ran below 2% from early 2008 until early 2021, ...
Newsletter
Forecasting Inflation During the Pandemic: Who Got It Right?
The sudden rise in inflation that started in 2021 was the largest in 40 years for the United States. The rapidity, size, and persistence of this increase took most observers by surprise. In this article, we conduct a retrospective analysis and compare the accuracy of inflation projections made before, during, and after the Covid-19 pandemic by three groups of people: individual households, professional forecasters, and policymakers on the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) of the Federal Reserve System.