What Do Components of Key Inflation Measures Say about Future Inflation?
McCracken, Michael W.; Ngân, Trần Khánh (2023-05-25)
A new analysis suggests that the food expenditures category of the consumer price index could be a useful signal of future headline inflation.
On the Economy

Price Volatility and Headline Inflation
McCracken, Michael W.; Amburgey, Aaron (2021-08-24)
Movements in “sticky prices”—items that show low price volatility—may indicate that recent swings in U.S. headline inflation are only temporary.
On the Economy

Core Inflation Revisited: Forecast Accuracy across Horizons
McCracken, Michael W.; Ngân, Trần Khánh (2024-03-01)
How far out can you forecast inflation? This analysis examines the accuracy of core inflation in predicting headline inflation for periods ranging from three to 24 months in the future.
On the Economy

Journal Article
Labor Constraints and Strong Demand Are Driving Robust Food Services Inflation
Scott, Francisco; Cowley, Cortney (2023-09-27)
Although headline inflation has slowed in recent months, inflation for core services has remained elevated since the first half of 2021. Inflation for food services in particular has been significantly higher than inflation for goods and other services. We argue that food services inflation has been elevated by the sector’s fast rebound in expenditures and its high dependency on labor amid labor shortages and elevated labor costs.
Economic Bulletin

Working Paper
A Broader Perspective on the Inflationary Effects of Energy Price Shocks
Kilian, Lutz; Zhou, Xiaoqing (2022-12-21)
Consumers purchase energy in many forms. Sometimes energy goods are consumed directly, for instance, in the form of gasoline used to operate a vehicle, electricity to light a home or natural gas to heat a home. At other times, the cost of energy is embodied in the prices of goods and services that consumers buy, say when purchasing an airline ticket or when buying online garden furniture made from plastic to be delivered by mail. Previous research has focused on quantifying the pass-through of the price of crude oil or the price of motor gasoline to U.S. inflation. Neither approach accounts ...
Working Papers , Paper 2224

Using Core Inflation to Predict Headline Inflation
McCracken, Michael W.; Ngân, Trần Khánh (2023-11-28)
An analysis of CPI data suggests that a measure of inflation excluding food and energy and a measure excluding only energy are useful predictors of overall inflation 12 months in the future.
On the Economy