{"id":11899,"date":"2015-09-06T08:14:16","date_gmt":"2015-09-06T13:14:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=11899"},"modified":"2015-09-06T08:14:16","modified_gmt":"2015-09-06T13:14:16","slug":"inflation-the-fed-and-the-big-picture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=11899","title":{"rendered":"Inflation, the Fed, and the Big Picture"},"content":{"rendered":"

Inflation, the Fed, and the Big Picture<\/a><\/span><\/h3>\n

CAMBRIDGE \u2013 Inflation \u2013 its causes and its connection to monetary policy and financial crises \u2013 was the theme of this year\u2019s\u00a0international conference of central bankers and academics<\/a>\u00a0in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. But, while policymakers\u2019 desire to be prepared for potential future risks to price stability is understandable, they did not place these concerns in the context of recent inflation developments at the global level \u2013 or within historical perspective.<\/p>\n

For the 189 countries for which data are available, median inflation for 2015 is running just below 2%, slightly lower than in 2014 and, in most cases, below the International Monetary Fund\u2019s projections in its April\u00a0World Economic Outlook<\/a>.<\/i>\u00a0As the figure below shows, inflation in nearly half of all countries (advanced and emerging, large and small) is now at or below 2% (which is how most central bankers define price stability).<\/p>\n

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Most of the other half are not doing badly, either. In the period following the oil shocks of the 1970s until the early 1980s, almost two-thirds of the countries recorded inflation rates above 10%. According to the latest data, which runs through July or August for most countries, there are \u201conly\u201d 14 cases of high inflation (the red line in the figure). Venezuela (which has not published official inflation statistics this year) and Argentina (which has not released reliable inflation data for several years) figure prominently in this group. Iran, Russia, Syria, Ukraine, and a handful of African countries comprise the rest.<\/p>\n

The share of countries recording outright deflation in consumer prices (the green line) is higher in 2015 than that of countries experiencing double-digit inflation (7% of the total). Whatever nasty surprises may lurk in the future, the global inflation environment is the tamest since the early 1960s.<\/span><\/p>\n

Read more at http:\/\/www.project-syndicate.org\/commentary\/jackson-hole-banking-conference-inflation-by-carmen-reinhart-2015-09#T1r408ZIPrXMqX7L.99<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Inflation, the Fed, and the Big Picture CAMBRIDGE \u2013 Inflation \u2013 its causes and its connection to monetary policy and financial crises \u2013 was the theme of this year\u2019s\u00a0international conference of central bankers and academics\u00a0in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. But, while policymakers\u2019 desire to be prepared for potential future risks to price stability is understandable, they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[124,303,305,312,8731,418,426,434,534,8732,8402,690],"class_list":["post-11899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-central-banks","tag-fed","tag-federal-reserve","tag-financial-crisis","tag-global-inflation","tag-imf","tag-inflation","tag-international-monetary-fund","tag-monetary-policy","tag-price-stability","tag-project-syndicate","tag-risk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11899"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11900,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11899\/revisions\/11900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}