ECONOMY
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Global Trends in U.S. Inflation Dynamics
Ozge Akinci, Martin Almuzara, Silvia Miranda-Agrippino, Ramya Nallamotu, Argia Sbordone, Greg Simitian, and William Zeng A key feature of the post-pandemic inflation surge was the strong correlation among inflation rates across sectors in the United States. This phenomenon, however, was not confined to the U.S. economy, as similar inflationary pressures have emerged in other advanced economies. As generalized as the…
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Comparing Apples to Apples: “Synthetic Real‑Time” Estimates of R‑Star
Sophia Cho and John C. Williams Estimates of the natural rate of interest, commonly called “r-star,” garner a great deal of attention among economists, central bankers, and financial market participants. The natural interest rate is the real (inflation-adjusted) interest rate expected to prevail when supply and demand in the economy are in balance and inflation is stable. The natural rate…
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When the Household Pie Shrinks, Who Gets Their Slice?
Jacob Conway, Natalia Fischl-Lanzoni, and Matthew Plosser When households face budgetary constraints, they may encounter bills and debts that they cannot pay. Unlike corporate credit, which typically includes cross-default triggers, households can be delinquent on a specific debt without repercussions from their other lenders. Hence, households can choose which creditors are paid. Analyzing these choices helps economists and investors better…
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Firms’ Inflation Expectations Have Picked Up
Jaison R. Abel, Richard Deitz, and Ben Hyman Editors note: Since this post was published, we clarified language in the first paragraph about year-ahead expectations for manufacturing and service firms in the 2025 survey. We also corrected the y-axis range of Chart 2. (March 5, 11 a.m.) After a period of particularly high inflation following the pandemic recession, inflationary pressures…
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Kartik Athreya on His First Year as Research Director of the New York Fed
A year has passed since Kartik Athreya became director of research at the New York Fed. To get some perspective on his experience thus far, we caught up with Kartik and asked about his views on economics, the role of Research at the Bank, and his take on a few of the hot topics of the day. Q: You joined…
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Supply and Demand Drivers of Global Inflation Trends
Ozge Akinci, Martin Almuzara, Silvia Miranda-Agrippino, Ramya Nallamotu, Argia Sbordone, Greg Simitian, and William Zeng Our previous post identified strong global components in the slow-moving and persistent dynamics of headline consumer price index (CPI) inflation in the U.S. and abroad. We labeled these global components as the Global Inflation Trend (GIT), the Core Goods Global Inflation Trend (CG-GIT) and the…
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Breaking Down Auto Loan Performance
Andrew Haughwout, Donghoon Lee, Daniel Mangrum, Joelle Scally, and Wilbert van der Klaauw Debt balances continued to rise at a moderate pace in the fourth quarter of 2024, and delinquencies, particularly for auto loans and credit cards, remained elevated, according to the latest Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit from the New York Fed’s Center for Microeconomic Data. Auto loan…
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How Censorship Resistant Are Decentralized Systems?
Jon Durfee and Michael Lee Public permissionless blockchains are designed to be censorship resistant, meaning access to the blockchain is unhampered. In practice, different blockchain ecosystem actors (such as users, builders, or proposers) can influence the degree to which a blockchain is resistant to censorship. In a recent Staff Report, we examine how sanctions imposed by the Office of Foreign…
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Are First-Time Home Buyers Facing Desperate Times?
Donghoon Lee and Joseph Tracy Based on recent proposals and policy dialogue, it would appear that first-time home buyers (FTB) are indeed facing desperate times. For example, in a recent Urban Institute study, Michael Stegman, Ted Tozer, and Richard Green advocate for a zero-downpayment Federal Housing Administration (FHA) mortgage. They argue that this would be a more efficient way to deliver…
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Discount Window Stigma After the Global Financial Crisis
Olivier Armantier, Marco Cipriani, and Asani Sarkar The rapidity of deposit outflows during the March 2023 banking run highlights the important role that the Federal Reserve’s discount window should play in strengthening financial stability. A lack of borrowing, however, has plagued the discount window for decades, likely due to banks’ concerns about stigma—that is, their unwillingness to borrow at the…
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