Happy Fifth Birthday, LSE!

When we launched our research blog five years ago this week, we didn’t expect to set any internet traffic records while writing about economics. Still, we saw that a blog would be a good way to build familiarity with our research and policy analysis, and to share the expertise of our staff when it’s relevant to issues in the public eye. As I said back at the birth, our goal was to deliver “lively, clear, and analytically sound” posts and, in that, I think we have succeeded.
What Tracks Commodity Prices?

Various news reports have asserted that the slowdown in China was a key factor driving down commodity prices in 2015. It is true that China’s growth eased last year and, owing to its manufacturing-intensive economy, that slackening could reasonably have had repercussions for commodity prices. Still, growth in Japan and Europe accelerated in 2015, with the net result that global growth was fairly steady last year, casting doubt on the China slowdown explanation. An alternative story relies on the strong correlation between the dollar and commodity prices over time. A simple regression shows that both global growth and the dollar track commodity prices, and in this framework, it is the rise of the dollar that captures last year’s drop in commodity prices. Thus a forecast of stable global growth and an unchanged dollar suggests little change in commodity prices in 2016.
Fundamental Disagreement: How Much and Why?
Richard K. Crump and Stefano Eusepi Everyone disagrees, even professional forecasters, especially about big economic questions. Has potential output growth changed since the financial crisis? Are we bound for a period of “secular stagnation”? Will the European economy rebound? When is inflation getting back to mandate-consistent level? In this post, we document to what degree […]
Who is Driving the Recent Decline in Consumer Inflation Expectations?
The expectations of U.S. consumers about inflation have declined to record lows over the past several months.
The FRBNY DSGE Model Meets Julia
Marco Del Negro, Marc Giannoni, Pearl Li, Erica Moszkowski, and Micah Smith We have implemented the FRBNY DSGE model in a free and open-source language called Julia. The code is posted here on GitHub, a public repository hosting service. This effort is the result of a collaboration between New York Fed staff and folks from […]
The FRBNY DSGE Model Forecast—November 2015
This post presents an update of the economic forecasts implied by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s (FRBNY) dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model, which we first introduced in a series of blog posts in September 2014.
End of the Road? Impact of Interest Rate Changes on the Automobile Market
The Importance of Commodity Prices in Understanding U.S. Import Prices and Inflation

The dollar rose sharply against both the euro and yen in 2014 and 2015 and non-oil import prices subsequently fell.
How Did Quantitative Easing Interact with Regional Inequality?
Income, or wealth, inequality is not something that central bankers generally worry about when setting monetary policy, the goals of which are to maintain price stability and promote full employment.
Differences in Rent Inflation by Cost of Housing
We know that different people experience different inflation rates because the bundle of goods and services that they consume is different from that of the “typical” household.