Economic Letter

Financial incentives from state governments are part of a growing trend of policies designed to spur innovation clusters in specific regions. Biotechnology industry clusters in particular have benefited from these subsidies, which have boosted the number of star biotech scientists in those states by roughly 15%. Likewise, the number of biotech jobs overall has grown in states that offered incentives, although they have had little impact on salaries. Incentives have also spilled over to generate sizable effects in local service sectors.

An accurate measure of economic slack is key to properly calibrate monetary policy. Two traditional gauges of slack have become harder to interpret since the Great Recession: the gap between output and its potential level, and the deviation of the unemployment rate from its natural rate. As a consequence, conventional policy rules based on these measures of slack generate wide-ranging policy rate recommendations. This variability highlights one of the challenges policymakers currently face.

Although inflation is currently low, some commentators fear that continued highly accommodative monetary policy may lead to a surge in inflation. However, projections that account for the different policy tools used by the Federal Reserve suggest that inflation will remain low in the near future. Moreover, the relative odds of low inflation outweigh those of high inflation, which is the opposite of historical projections. An important factor continuing to hold down inflation is the persistent effects of the financial crisis.

Over the past two years, both monetary and fiscal policy projections have been based on the view that declines in the long-run potential growth rate of the economy will in turn push down interest rates. In contrast, examination of private-sector professional forecasts and historical data provides little evidence of such a linkage. This suggests a greater risk that future interest rates may be higher than expected.

The housing sector has been one of the weakest links in the economic recovery, and the latest data continue to show only modest improvement. One obstacle to a pickup in housing demand has been tight mortgage credit standards. Indeed, loan standards for borrowers with lower credit scores have shown few signs of easing. Still, as the share of new mortgages financed in the private market has started to rise, access to credit may improve.

The Federal Reserve is on track to end asset purchases in the near future and has laid the groundwork for its plan to eventually normalize monetary policy by raising short-term interest rates. The process of policy normalization is unlikely to start soon, however, and its exact timing will depend on further improvements in unemployment, wages, and inflation. The following is adapted from a presentation by the president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco to business and community leaders in Las Vegas, Nevada, on October 9, 2014.

Forecasts of short-term interest rates that are based on futures rates in financial markets can be very misleading when the policy rate is near the zero lower bound. By contrast, options on future short-term interest rates can provide more accurate projections. Currently these options suggest that the federal funds rate—the Federal Reserve’s key monetary policy interest rate—is most likely to lift off from zero around mid-2015 and rise only slowly afterwards at a pace of about 1 percentage point per year.

Because the health sector makes up a large share of the U.S. economy, widespread price changes for medical services can impact overall inflation significantly. Cuts to public health-care spending spill over directly and indirectly to private spending. A recent estimate suggests the full effect of the Medicare payment cuts from the 2011 Budget Control Act resulted in a decline of 0.24 percentage point in the overall personal consumption expenditures price index. This is over twice the expected drop if private-sector spillovers are not included.