This economist keeps staying on topic
The Fed’s inflation miscalculations risk hurting the poor
The writer is president of Queens’ College, Cambridge and an adviser to Allianz and Gramercy
Once again, a widely watched inflation data release surprises on the upside. Once again, the underlying drivers of inflation continue to broaden. Once again, it is the most vulnerable segments of the population that are hit hardest.
And once again, those who all year long have been characterising this inflation episode as “transitory” appear hesitant to revisit their convictions despite consistently contradictory data.
At one level, this hesitancy should not come as a huge surprise given the usualbehavioural traps: in this case, they include inappropriate framing, confirmation biases, narrative inertia, and resistance to a loss of face. Yet, its persistence in the face of repeatedly contradictory data seriously increases the risk of otherwise-avoidable economic, financial, institutional and social damage.
According to the data released on Wednesday, US consumer prices rose 0.9 per cent in October alone, well above the median forecast of 0.6 per cent. This took the annual inflation rate to 6.2 per cent, again above the 5.9 per cent consensus expectation and the highest in 31 years.
Such unusually high inflation is likely to continue in the months ahead given price increases already in the pipeline. This week alone, the indices of producer prices in China and the US registered rises of 13.5 per cent and 8.6 per cent respectively.
Wage increases are also moving higher and, judging by the recent corporate earnings season, many companies are preparing for the underlying drivers — from supply chain disruptions, insufficient truck capacity and clogged ports to high freight rates and labour shortages — to last into next year.
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It is not surprising that the run of recent months of persistently high inflation has started to change behaviour. Wage demands are going up across more sectors, as is the threat of strikes. Companies are feeling more comfortable about lifting their prices given robust demand. There are even indications of consumers bringing forward purchases.
Despite the trifecta of persistently higher-than-expected inflation, further price rises in the pipeline and changing behaviour, the inflation narrative is proving particularly slow to evolve at the US Federal Reserve. With that, monetary policy continues to fall behind realities on the ground.
The lack of a credible central bank voice on inflation also leaves markets in somewhat of a muddled middle. Witness the high volatility in government bond markets that is managing to whipsaw even the most sophisticated and seasoned investors.
Fed hesitancy is a material risk to economic and social wellbeing. I say this in the full knowledge that a lessening of the emergency-level monetary policy stimulus will not solve supply chain disruptions and labour shortages, the two major causes of accelerating cost-push inflation.
Yet the continued sidelining of the inflation threat by the Fed risks making things worse by de-anchoring inflationary expectations due to the persistence of extremely loose monetary policy, record easy financial conditions (according to the weekly Goldman Sachs index of them), and the lack of adequate forward policy guidance.
It will also bolster the view that the Fed is captive to financial markets, especially given its relatively lax regulatory stance, and insensitive to the continuous worsening in inequality.
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There is a lot at stake here. The later the Fed is in easing its foot off the monetary stimulus accelerator, the greater the probability that it will have to hit the brakes more aggressively down the road. This would unnecessarily undermine an economic recovery that needs to be strong, inclusive and sustainable.
By undermining macro-economic stability, this would also make green financing and other climate initiatives harder to follow up on, and place more obstacles in the path of the Biden administration’s ambitious economic agenda. Inflation will continue to hit low-income households particularly hard. Already, surging food and petrol prices are taking big chunks out from household budgets.
The adverse risk scenario is also getting more worrisome. The more the Fed falls behind, the greater the threat of it being a driver of three of four simultaneous contractionary forces in the middle of next year if not earlier: higher interest rates, financial market instability, a reduction in the real value of household savings and the erosion of fiscal stimulus.
Should these materialise together — and the possibility is rising — the US economy would end up in an otherwise-avoidable recession, also dragging down growth rates in the rest of the world. While this would bring down inflation, it would do so at a huge cost.
This week’s inflation numbers amplify an alarm bell that has been ringing for a while. Let’s hope that, this time around, the alarm prompts the Fed into taking additional monetary measures, starting with an acceleration next month in the timetable for the tapering of large-scale asset purchases.
The good news is that there is still a window for an effective monetary policy adjustment. The bad news is that the window has narrowed and is becoming uncomfortably small. Failure to act promptly would turn the Fed’s increasingly discredited “transitory” characterisation from one of the worst inflation calls in decades to also a big policy mistake with widespread and unnecessary damage, particularly for the most vulnerable segments of society."
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