Patrick Harker, Speech: Inflation, Monetary Policy, and the Anchor Economy Initiative

Gas and Inflation

“Gasoline prices spiked here, fell a bit, and are now back up again. OPEC Plus has further compounded our problems by announcing it will cut production, even in the face of elevated prices. We know that gas prices are incredibly important to consumers and responsible for much of the decline in consumer sentiment.”

Inflation

“We want to see inflation coming down steadily and consistently, and we also want to see it abating across a wide array of goods and services. The goal is to adjust conditions so that demand better matches supply.”

Rate Hikes

“In the upcoming months, in light of the cumulative tightening we have achieved, I expect we will slow the pace of our rate hikes as we approach a sufficiently restrictive stance. But I want to be clear: A rate hike of 50 basis points would still be significant. Since 1983, the FOMC has increased the target a total of 88 times, and of those, 75 of the hikes were less than 50 basis points.”

Pause

“At some point next year, I expect we will hold at a restrictive rate for a while to let monetary policy do its work. It will take a while for the higher cost of capital to work its way through the economy. After that, if we have to, we can always tighten further, based on the data. But we should let the system work itself out. And we also need to recognize that this will take time.”

Forecasts – GDP, Inflation, Jobs

“So what does all of this mean for the economy? I expect that economic growth will moderate this year as both inflation and tightening financial conditions begin to crimp consumption. Overall, I forecast flat GDP growth for 2022, 1.5 percent growth in 2023, and around 2 percent growth in 2024.”

“Inflation will come down, but it will take some time to get to our target. I expect core PCE inflation to come in around 4.8 percent in 2022, around 3.5 percent next year, and 2.5 percent in 2024.”

“Turning to the job market, the unemployment rate should peak at 4.5 percent next year as financial conditions bite. It should then fall to 4 percent in 2024, which suggests that, even as we tighten monetary policy, labor markets will stay quite healthy. We’ve heard from contacts in manufacturing that, given how hard they have worked to staff up, they will be extremely reluctant to cut jobs even as the economy slows.”