Economic Letter
Brief summaries of SF Fed economic research that explain in reader-friendly terms what our work means for the people we serve.
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Return of the Original Phillips Curve
Peter Lihn Jørgensen and Kevin J. Lansing
The link between changes in U.S. inflation and the output gap has weakened in recent decades. Over the same time, a positive link between the level of inflation and the output gap has emerged, reminiscent of the original 1958 version of the Phillips curve. This development is important because it indicates that structural changes in the economy have not eliminated the inflationary pressure of gap variables. Improved anchoring of people’s expectations for inflation, which makes the expected inflation term in the Phillips curve more stable, can account for both observations.
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Minority Banks during the COVID-19 Pandemic
Sophia Friesenhahn and Simon Kwan
The COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately affected the health and financial well-being of communities of color. Over the past year, minority banks that specialize in providing financial services to underserved communities and minority borrowers have also performed significantly worse than other banks of similar size. Minority banks projected higher loan losses and had lower profits than nonminority banks. To the extent that underperforming minority banks may be more reluctant to expand lending—whether to avoid risk or minimize regulatory scrutiny—it could further exacerbate the unevenness of the recovery.
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Do Households Expect Inflation When Commodities Surge?
Reuven Glick, Noah Kouchekinia, Sylvain Leduc, and Zheng Liu
Household surveys indicate that consumers expect higher inflation this year than in recent years, as the U.S. economy rebounds from the deep recession. This has coincided with a surge in commodity prices, as strong demand for goods like gas, food, and construction materials is catching producers with low supplies. Evidence suggests that households respond to commodity price increases by raising their expectations of future inflation. However, since surges in commodity prices are transitory, their effects on inflation expectations—particularly long-term expectations—are modest and short-lived.
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How Much Did the CARES Act Help Households Stay Afloat?
James Aylward, Elizabeth Laderman, Luiz E. Oliveira, and Gladys Teng
Widespread job losses starting in mid-March last year forced many households to rely more heavily on nonemployment income and liquid assets on hand to continue buying what they needed. Federal assistance through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act helped boost household resilience—the ability to sustain consumption despite the loss of employment income. Data suggest that the aid increased household resilience by 15 weeks, chiefly through enhanced unemployment insurance benefits. Among racial groups, this benefited Black and Hispanic households the most, raising median household resilience by 19 weeks.
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Climate Risk and the Fed: Preparing for an Uncertain Certainty
Mary C. Daly
While the severity and scope of a changing climate remains unclear, the consensus is that it poses a significant risk to the global economy and financial system. As monetary policymakers, the Fed’s job is to navigate this uncertainty by anticipating the potential changes and understanding their implications. The following is adapted from remarks by the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco to the Peterson Institute for International Economics on June 22.
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The Economy’s Response to Potential Climate Policy
Stephie Fried, Kevin Novan, and William B. Peterman
Uncertainty about U.S. climate policy in the future creates risk that affects the investment decisions businesses make today. If firms expect future policy to raise the cost of carbon emissions, then they could react to this by both shifting investment towards cleaner capital and reducing overall investment. These two responses lead to lower emissions, even if no actual climate policy is in place. Evidence suggests that this risk encourages companies to voluntarily reduce emissions using internal carbon prices and other mechanisms.
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The Divergent Signals about Labor Market Slack
Troy Gilchrist and Bart Hobijn
A broad dashboard of indicators is sending mixed signals about the state of the labor market. Some indicators have deviated widely from their normal historical relationships since the onset of COVID-19. Because of the uneven economic impact of the pandemic, the labor force participation rate, payroll employment, and the share of job losers among the unemployed have provided more reliable signals about overall conditions than other components of the dashboard. They suggest that labor slack is higher than implied by the current headline unemployment rate.
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Fiscal Multiplier at the Zero Bound: Evidence from Japan
Ethan Goode, Zheng Liu, and Thuy Lan Nguyen
The United States has implemented large-scale fiscal policy measures to help households and businesses cushion the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic and to strengthen the recovery. The Federal Reserve has also supported the economy by keeping its policy rate at the zero lower bound. Evidence from Japan suggests that, in a sustained zero-bound environment, an unexpected increase in government spending has much larger and more persistent effects on real GDP, and even more so when the economy is in a recession.
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Exploring the Safety Premium of Safe Assets
Jens H.E. Christensen and Nikola Mirkov
Investors are usually willing to pay a higher price, known as a premium, for a safe fixed-income asset in return for the convenience of its high quality and liquidity. A study of Swiss government bonds—widely considered to be extremely safe but not particularly liquid—can give some insights into how quality affects the premium. The large and variable safety premium of these bonds surged to persistently higher levels following the launch of the euro. However, subsequent large asset purchases by the European Central Bank depressed the safety premium.
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The Last Resort in a Changing Landscape
Mary C. Daly
As lender of last resort, the Federal Reserve plays a vital role in maintaining a sound and stable financial system. But the frequency and scale of Fed interventions following disruptions like the Global Financial Crisis and COVID-19 are concerning. As the country emerges from the pandemic, it’s time to focus on crafting more resilient policies, particularly by addressing Treasury market vulnerabilities and providing greater prudential oversight. The following is adapted from remarks by the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco to the Money Marketeers on April 15.