Patrick Harker, Speech: Survey Results on Economic Conditions

Speech — Only regional economic information was shared.

Panel Discussion — Video not currently available.

“Survey data are an important tool in the economic business. At the Fed, we look at everything from big broad numbers like GDP and employment growth to more granular figures like restaurant reservations and mobility data. These data — hard data — tell us a lot.”

“But as a policymaker, I’ve come to believe that soft data like survey results are perhaps equally important to getting a full understanding of our economic situation. Candidly, an overemphasis on hard data can lead to policy errors; last year, hard data suggested to us that inflation would be “transitory,” whereas the soft data we were hearing from our contacts indicated that rising prices were proving more persistent than we may have expected. Which is to say, paying due attention to soft data is vitally important to effective policymaking.”