저자: ChristopherWaller · 외국인
요약 보기
연준 이사 Waller는 인플레이션이 2% 목표를 크게 웃돌지만 근원 3개월 인플레는 4.76%에서 3.05%로 둔화 중이라 진전을 인정. 고용은 안정(실업률 4.1%), 성장은 2% 안팎으로 양호. 8월 물가가 둔화 추세를 이으면 금리 동결, 되돌려지면 금리 인상 가능성을 언급. 에너지 가격과 관세의 파급은 제한적이라고 평가.
다듬은 글
economic, uh, issues and discussions that, uh, drive these decisions. Prior to that, he was the director of research at the St. Louis Federal Reserve for about 11 years , as well as a professor of economics at the University of Notre Dame. Yes. He was previously, uh, among several people that President Trump was also considering as a candidate for Fed chairman.
We'll be chatting with him and hoping to cover a lot of topics, but before that, Chris has a prepared speech to kick off the discussion. Chris, I'll give the floor to you. OK. Thank you, Howard. Before we begin, let me outline my views on today's economic outlook and its implications for monetary policy.
In short: while inflation remains well above the Federal Open Market Committee's 2% target, recent data suggests that we are finally seeing signs of disinflation. If this trend in the data continues over the next two weeks, I would be inclined to support keeping the federal funds target rate at its current level.
However, there remains significant uncertainty about how military conflicts, trade policies, and artificial intelligence will affect prices and economic activity. If incoming data for August shows that this movement was fleeting, it may be appropriate to raise the policy rate at the FOMC meeting on September 15-16.
Now, after describing my outlook on the economy and monetary policy, I will share my thoughts on how I communicate these views to the public. So, let me start with the real sector of the economy. Despite the uncertainties I mentioned, most of which weigh on economic growth or activity, real gross domestic product, or GDP, growth continues at a solid pace.
Real GDP grew by 1.8% year-on-year in the first half of this year. Consumer spending growth was steady in the second quarter after a slow start to the year. While business investment was strong throughout the period, total real private domestic final purchases—the spending measure that best reflects the underlying strength of consumer demand— rose by a significant 3% in the first half of 2026.
We currently have only limited data for the third quarter of this year, including weak retail sales figures in July. But this decline reflects the fact that the Amazon Prime Day promotion was held in June, which led to a drop in seasonally adjusted sales in July. Excluding non-store sales, retail spending increased.
Given the rise in wealth due to rising stock prices this year, I believe this will support continued consumption growth. In the business sector, data center plans point to continued rapid growth in investment , driven by the deployment of AI and related technological upgrades. Investment in high- tech continues to grow rapidly, and investment in software, which some feared might decline due to AI’s ability to write code, is showing growth at the level of its long-term historical average .
Some may argue that these investments in a narrow sector that is more capital-intensive than labor-intensive are deceptively supportive of GDP and should be somewhat discounted. I disagree with this. Investment in AI is a legitimate part of GDP today, and I expect this technology to remain an important part of the economy after the peak of development is over, when AI becomes as integrated into our lives as the internet.
More broadly, one of the signals of steady growth in business spending was another increase in sentiment among purchasing managers in the non-manufacturing sector in July to a level that I would also call solid. New orders for these companies, which make up the majority of businesses in the economy, continued to rise in July, and the index of supply problems continued to improve.
Today we will receive the results of the August survey in the non-manufacturing sector. So we'll see if this trend continues. Combining the various elements of the economy, I expect real GDP to grow by just over 2% this year. This is a decent result, considering all the uncertainties I mentioned. Now let's move on to the labor market, the state of which is also satisfactory.
Although there were signs of weakening labor demand relative to supply in the second half of 2025, these signs have disappeared. Job creation , while somewhat erratic, has increased by an average of 60,000 per month this year as of July. This is close to estimates, and perhaps slightly higher than what is needed to match slow labor force growth, largely due to much lower net immigration.
Job growth has spread across most sectors of the economy in recent months, and the unemployment rate fell slightly to 4.1% in July —a historically low figure that is just below the median of the FOMC’s long-run equilibrium rate. Layoffs and initial claims for unemployment benefits are also at low levels.
I expect this trend to continue tomorrow when we get the August employment report. Since economic activity and the labor market are in good shape , they are not a determining factor in my decision to set the appropriate monetary policy parameters. But they provide an important foundation for the part of the forecast that I am currently focused on— inflation and my assessment of how well the current policy stance is conducive to returning inflation to 2%.
More on this later. So, inflation is well above the FOMC's 2% target and has been going beyond it for five and a half years. In July, prices based on the Personal Consumption Expenditure Index, or PCE inflation, rose 0.2%. And core prices, excluding food and energy, increased by 0.2%. While I was pleased to see this monthly core inflation figure as it continued the trend of lower readings we saw earlier this year, what caught my attention in the PCE report was that non-market services prices accounted for about half of the increase in core PCE prices.
You probably know that I don't like to remove individual categories from the PCE inflation estimate, but non-market services have always been a problem for me because they are estimated, not actual, price changes. So, ignoring this factor, I believe that core inflation is even better than past monthly figures suggest.
PCE prices are now up 3.7% year-over-year over the past 12 months, and core PCE inflation is 3.3%. While it is important to recognize these 12-month increases because of their real-world impact on businesses and consumers, they are not the best guide to understanding inflation levels today. I say this because, despite the uncertainty about the geopolitical factors that have pushed up prices, I do not see high energy prices and tariffs as a significant source of ongoing inflationary pressure at this time.
Evidence suggests that the price effects of tariffs have already largely been reflected in inflation, and my previous concern that higher energy prices would spill over into many goods and services has not yet materialized. After these price shocks, to determine the current inflation trend, it is useful to focus on more recent price increases, such as how inflation measured over the past three months has evolved over the year.
To deal with the ongoing volatility in energy prices, I will focus on core inflation excluding food and energy, which is usually a good guide to future inflation. So, three-month core inflation is 3.05% as of July, which is still not consistent with the FOMC's 2% target. Nevertheless, it is important to note this trend.
Three-month inflation has been steadily declining from 4.76% in February to 3.05% today . This is a significant change in the three-month inflation rate. This is a significant improvement. And the speed of this downward trajectory is encouraging. One factor that I believe will slightly reduce the level of reported inflation is the expected change in the method by which the Department of Commerce assesses commissions paid to stock traders and related professionals .
This change in the valuation of non-market prices, which I expect to occur in the near future, could reduce 12- month PC inflation by a few tenths of a percentage point. Given my comments on pricing non-market services, I see this as a welcome measurement adjustment. Now I see certain risks of rising inflation.
Energy prices have rebounded and remain significantly higher than in early 2026, and the economy faces both price pressures on technology goods related to the development of AI and the possibility of further tariff increases. But unlike the period of high inflation after the pandemic, wage growth, taking into account labor productivity gains , is broadly consistent with the expectation that inflation continues to decline to 2%.
I also note that public expectations about future inflation may rise after a prolonged period of inflation above the FOMC target. Fortunately, the Fed has a very good track record of delivering on its commitments, and we are not seeing a significant increase in long-term inflation expectations. But this needs to be recognized as a risk that the FOMC should be prepared to respond to if long-term expectations begin to rise and progress in the fight against inflation reverses.
So, this brings me to my monetary policy outlook, which I mentioned at the beginning of these remarks. As of today, the labor market is stable, employment is close to its maximum sustainable level, and inflation is slowly but surely approaching 2%. We will get another employment report tomorrow and another inflation figure before the next FOMC meeting.
I don't expect the employment data to be much different from what we've seen so far. Therefore, my decision on the appropriate policy stance will depend largely on what we learn about August inflation. If progress towards our 2% goal continues, I am prepared to support keeping the policy rate at its current level.
But if inflation turns out to be high, I will consider raising the rate. In my opinion, current policies are only slightly constraining aggregate demand, and it may take a small acceleration in inflation to push me to support tighter policies. If evidence emerges that progress towards 2% inflation has reversed in August, a small adjustment to our stance would help ensure its recovery.
Finally, I want to talk about central bank communication, which I consider an integral part of the monetary policy process. I will distinguish three types of communication that are relevant to monetary policy and explain how I personally try to communicate my views to the public. First, I try to explain why I chose my current political position.
If I vote to keep rates unchanged, I explain how current economic conditions influenced my decision. I supported the FOMC's decision in late July to leave rates unchanged because the data at the time indicated stability in the real economy and we finally saw signs of the beginning of disinflation. So I was willing to be patient to see if this process would continue.
The second way I communicate is by explaining how future economic data will affect my future policy decisions. In short, I'm trying to describe my response function. When I think about future data, I explain: if—I emphasize the “ if”—it turns out to be certain, I will advocate for the appropriate policy.
The key point is that this is not a commitment to specific actions. This is a conditional statement about policy. A different economic outcome would prompt me to advocate for different policy steps. In today's speech, I outlined what exactly would make me support extending the pause and what would make me support strengthening the policy.
By explaining my reaction function, consumers, businesses, and investors can better understand how I will vote and factor it into their planning. Is this response function perfect? No. But my many years of experience as an economist and politician have given me a deep understanding of how policy should respond to shocks.
In this sense, I compare myself to a baseball umpire behind "home." The pitcher is trying to get the batter out of the game. The batter is trying to hit the ball or earn a base. Both want to play, but can't until they find out where the umpire's strike zone is . The strike zone is a function of the referee's reaction.
If the ball flies here, it's a strike. If the ball flies here, it's a pain. Players don't expect a perfect strike zone from an umpire. They just need to roughly understand the parameters and have a guarantee that they won't change with each roll. Perfection is not required for successful play. So regarding my reaction function: I don't let the pursuit of perfection get in the way of a good result.
The third and final type of communication is forward-looking indicators , which point the way for the future interest rate, regardless of the arrival of new data. This type of communication is most justified when the discount rate is at the effective lower bound and additional communication is needed to manage market expectations.
For example, in September 2021, it was clear to me that we needed to raise the discount rate to deal with accelerating inflation. But since this was only to happen after the asset purchases were terminated, I supported forward-looking communication and clearly signaled the end of these purchases, paving the way for a rate hike in 2022.
By signaling to the markets that a rate hike was imminent and would occur soon, market interest rates began to rise. By March 2022, two-year Treasury bonds had risen by 200 basis points, and we had not even moved the discount rate from its effective lower bound. So, in this example, forward-looking communication helped strengthen economic conditions long before we actually raised the discount rate.
But it is important to remember that these measures were taken when the discount rate was close to zero . I agree with Chairman Worth that predictive communication is not appropriate now or in many other situations. But when it is really needed, I believe it should be used. I think I've said enough on this.
So, Howard, let's move on to your questions, which I'm sure will be more valid than most of my answers. Uh , thank you very much, Chris. We'll move over here, on a chair. So after you. Uh, thanks again for the detailed and, as always, provocative speech . Um, let me start by saying that this has put a lot of weight on the CPI, and I'm sure the CPI rates are just jumping up and down and generally chaotic right now.
Uh , so let's dig into this a little bit, if we can. The 2% inflation target is set based on personal consumption expenditures. Er, it works differently than the CPI. Therefore, you must convert the CPI to PCE. Uh, give us a little more detail on what you 'll be looking at on September 11th when the next CPI is released to say, "yes, it's going to be bad" or "yes, things are continuing to improve." So, once you get the CPI, and then the PPI a day later , you have a pretty good idea of what the PCE is going to be.
So that's why we can focus on these two numbers, because they tell us pretty accurately what's going to happen. Now, I have been arguing for over a year that tariffs will lose their one-time impact on the price level and that by this summer we will see a rapid decline in inflation. The energy price shock at the beginning of the year created some uncertainty about this.
But if we go back to January 2025, core PC inflation was around 2.3%. We weren't too far away, were we ? So, if we get this reduction that I was talking about, almost a whole percentage point, then we should see pretty low, uh, lower numbers. So I think that's what we're going to start seeing. As I said, so far energy prices have not affected other goods and prices.
So I really think, my expectation is that we'll get acceptable CPI and PPI numbers, uh, next month. That's right. Now people will accuse me based on individual data. I think you've already started doing that. But what I'm trying to point out is that if you only look at the trend, you'll always miss the tipping point.
Turning points are not captured by the trend. That's the whole idea. So once you get to
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