Kartik B. Athreya

In this recurring column, Kartik Athreya, the New York Fed’s Director of Research, draws connections between broader economic policy issues and our everyday lives.
 
Expectations shape behavior. That’s why the Survey of Consumer Expectations, now in its 10th year, is such an important tool for central bankers. The monthly survey, produced by our Center for Microeconomic Data, has three main components: inflation expectations, labor market expectations, and household finance expectations. While all these expectations are important, I’ll focus here on inflation expectations, and how they shape people’s actions.

Kartik B. Athreya

In this recurring column, Kartik Athreya, the New York Fed’s Director of Research, draws connections between broader economic policy issues and our everyday lives.

A type of statement one frequently hears, and that I myself sometimes make, is that “inflation is being driven by item X being stuck in a supply-chain mess,” or “item Y being suddenly in great demand,” and so on.

Kartik B. Athreya

Though I only just joined the New York Fed in February, I’ve been closely following its equitable growth research for nearly five years. Recently, I spoke with researchers from a broad range of areas across the Federal Reserve System, including micro-, macro-, and financial economics, about why “equitable” and “growth” are important to our understanding of the economy. Given today’s release of our Equitable Growth Indicators, I want to share more broadly, in my view, why this work matters to us.