Monday, November 10, 2014

Eric Rosengren: Fed, Inflation, and Unemployment

Since Lindsey has already done a fantastic job of recapitulating Eric Rosengren's talk today, I do not feel compelled to make another summary on my blog.

What particularly interested me was Rosengren's opinion regarding the Fed's recent end of QE. As Lindsey stated on her blog, Fed wants to take a patient approach as to first address the 'slacks in labor market' before attempting to raise the interest rates. I was initially surprised to hear this since the unemployment rate has been relatively much lower since 2008 (5.8% currently, which is quite close to full employment according to Rosengren himself). However, Rosengren argued that much of the drop in unemployment rate was due to the increase in number of people settling for part-time jobs (so 20 hours per week or less). Fed seeks to increase the meaningful matches between jobs and people and thus it is very resolved in continuing to target for the true full employment.

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