Targeting Inflation : The Effects of Monetary Policy on the CPI and its Housing Component

Most observers of the Federal Reserve are willing to credit it with success at achieving low and stable rates of inflation. Many do not even question that the Fed's primary concern should be fighting inflation. However, the targets for monetary policy adopted by the Fed in recent years have not proven to be closely correlated with inflation, and commentators criticize the Fed's apparent predilection to choose whichever target appears to be pointing in the "right" direction. In the search for a target that seems to be closely correlated with inflation, some theorists and policymakers have advocated the use of a price index--most notably the consumer price index (CPI)--as both the target and the goal of monetary policy. Executive Director Dimitri B. Papadimitriou and Research Associate L. Randall Wray argue in this Public Policy Brief that the CPI deviates in several important respects from an ideal theoretical measure of inflation. An ideal measure would, first, accurately reflect market-caused price increases and, second, potentially be under the control of monetary policy. The authors show that the CPI fails in both respects. Papadimitriou and Wray attempt to determine which components of the CPI have tended to pull up the index and to analyze the avenues through which monetary policy might attenuate the rate of price increase of these individual components. Their investigation is consistent with recent concerns over apparent biases in the CPI when used as a cost-of-living index, but their analysis extends beyond such concerns; they also focus on how and why the CPI is not appropriate as a target or goal of monetary policy because the transmission mechanisms through which monetary policy is thought to affect the CPI are tenuous at best. The authors argue that this is due in part to the fact that components of the CPI involve "imputed" values that are largely unconnected with those fundamental market forces likely to be influenced by Fed policy. Papadimitriou and Wray note that although "it is beyond the scope of this Public Policy Brief to examine all of the components of the CPI, we are convinced that use of any index of price changes will be fraught with difficulties similar to those outlined here." The anomalies they find in the CPI's housing component data are not unique; rather, they "suspect there are other important anomalies reflected in the CPI that make it a poor measure of inflation to be used in monetary policy formation." Therefore, careful reconsideration of an alternative ultimate target, such as the rate of economic growth or the unemployment rate, is warranted. However, given the uncertainties involved in the choice of such ultimate targets, the authors think it would be premature for the Fed to commit to any particular goal, especially one of "price stability." Moreover, because the evidence presented here sheds doubt on how central banks might fight inflation or if they can reduce it, and because there is no credible evidence that a moderate rise in interest rates causes smooth curtailment of spending plans, the authors conclude that this is an inappropriate time to amend the Employment Act of 1946 and the Humphrey-Hawkins Act of 1978 and to require the Fed to focus on price stability and to ignore other important economic indicators of our nation's well-being