Inflation

As we await the Q4 Employment Cost Index (ECI) release tomorrow (forecasting consensus: 1.2% QoQ, 4.9% CAGR; Q3: 1.2% QoQ, 4.8% CAGR), two key points to keep in mind. 1. The Q4 Data Showed Slowing Across Many Wage and Wage-Relevant Indicators, Potentially To 4.2% annualized.

The Fed is arguing that inflation is driven by the cost-push impacts of wage growth on service prices. This is a traditional view, but the pandemic recovery has been anything but textbook. In our view, the primary nexus is a demand-pull relationship. The core question for the Fed ought to

The Fed is worried that inflation will continue until wage growth comes down or unemployment ticks up based on the continued strength in “Core PCE Services ex-Housing”. But the Fed is wrong to be so confident.

For those who have followed my Twitter feed, you will know that I have long pointed out that "narrow vs broad-based," "transitory vs persistent," and "supply vs demand" are not three ways of saying the same thing.

In the coming weeks, we hope to discuss in greater detail what kinds of labor market and inflation outcomes the Fed should be aiming for. Here is an initial layout of how some of our macroeconomic views tend to differ from senior Fed officials. The Fed has increasingly gone back

A soft landing consensus for CPI? The forecasting consensus is sticking close to its November predictions, with a 0.3% increase expected for core CPI (falling from 6% to 5.7% year-over-year) and -0.1% for headline CPI (falling from 7.1% to 6.5% year-over-year) for December. A print

Though they may proclaim otherwise, the Fed is aiming for a recessionary labor market. They might not succeed, they might change their minds, but buried in the Fed’s latest projections is a definite–albeit obscured–statement of intent.

Market rents are decelerating, which means CPI-measured rents – and with them, core and headline CPI – should ultimately decelerate as well, with a lag. But is this deceleration due to the Fed’s actions? Or is it because job growth is slowing down endogenously, as many have been expecting over this

Not out of the woods yet on upside risks to monthly core CPI inflation: The forecasting consensus has shifted down from its 0.5% expectation for core CPI in October to a more optimistic 0.3% expectation in November. This seems to be mostly a reaction to the welcome core