Inflation expectations remain remarkably well anchored

REAL ECONOMY BLOG | February 19, 2024

Authored by RSM US LLP

The inflation shock of the past three years is abating. One reason is that expectations of inflation continue to remain remarkably well anchored.

The Federal Reserve’s five-year inflation forward breakeven rate-—a closely watched measure of pricing expectations—stands at 2.3%, which is below the cyclical peak of 2.67% posted on April 19, 2022.

The average over the past 20 years is 2.37%, and since 2020, which includes the pandemic-era shocks, it stands at 2.1%.

Inflation expectations play a critical role in determining actual inflation: They influence decisions about corporate investment and household consumption. Those decisions, in turn, affect prices and wages. If people think inflation is accelerating, their behavior reflects that expectation.

This is particularly the case in developed economies, where inflation expectations are typically the primary driver of inflation. A good rule of thumb, developed by the International Monetary Fund, is that inflation in advanced economies tends to increase by 0.8 percentage points for each 1 percentage point in forward-looking expectations.

It’s a different story in emerging market economies, where past inflation plays a much larger role in shaping inflation expectations. The pass through in those economies is approximately 0.4%.

Our preferred metric for the United States is the Federal Reserve’s five-year forward breakeven inflation rate. That rate represents a measure of expected inflation derived from five-year Treasury constant maturity securities and five-year Treasury inflation-indexed constant maturity securities. The latest value implies what market participants expect inflation to be in the next five years, on average.

From our vantage point, this market-derived measure captures the best estimation of future inflation captured through actual money on the table in financial markets.

To test our preferred metric, we use a series of public survey data on inflation. One of the best is the New York Fed’s Survey of Consumer Expectations that is produced by its Center for Microeconomic Data.

The January survey implies that the public expects a 3% increase in inflation over a one-year horizon, 2.4% over three years and 2.5% over five years.

In our estimation, the major cause of the recent inflation shock was the shutdown of global supply chains during the pandemic, while the persistence is because of a combination of fiscal and monetary policies put in place to address pandemic-era economic distortions.

Despite the inflation shock, public and market-derived inflation expectations have not moved much beyond longer-term averages and are in line with an inflation target of 2% to 2.5%, which we believe will define the post-pandemic inflation environment.

The takeaway

We are confident that the Federal Reserve is close to achieving price stability along maximum-sustainable employment, which is the second part of the Fed’s dual mandate.

In addition, we have recently updated our 2024 forecast for the Fed’s preferred measure of inflation—the personal consumption expenditures deflator—and now expect a return to 2% in the near term, which is in line with the central bank’s inflation target.

This article was written by Joseph Brusuelas and originally appeared on 2024-02-19. Reprinted with permission from RSM US LLP.
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