With respect to prices, inflation has been running somewhat below the Federal Reserve’s objective of a 2 percent annualized rate for the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) deflator. For example, over the past twelve months, the overall PCE deflator has risen by 1.4 percent, and the core PCE deflator, which excludes food and energy, has increased by 1.5 percent. Moreover, for the next few months, inflation is likely to moderate further as the impact of falling gasoline prices and the firmer dollar feed into the official U.S. inflation statistics. Thereafter, I expect that inflation will begin to move back towards our 2 percent objective, pushed there as slack in the economy continues to diminish and pulled there by well-anchored inflation expectations. In assessing inflation expectations, I currently put more weight on survey-based measures of inflation expectations as opposed to market-based measures. Survey-based measures have been generally stable, consistent with inflation expectations remaining well-anchored. However, market-based measures, such as those based on breakeven inflation derived from the difference between yields on nominal versus Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS), have registered declines over the past few months, even on a 5-years forward basis. Research done by my staff suggests that much of this decline in market-based measures of inflation compensation reflects a fall in the inflation risk premium – that is, what investors are willing to pay to protect themselves against inflation risk. Adjusting for the fall in the inflation risk premium, inflation expectations appear to have declined much less than implied by TIPS inflation breakeven measures.

Of course, progress has not been uniform across EMEs, and more work remains to further strengthen institutional structures in some countries. In particular, vulnerabilities remain in several important EMEs, and some EMEs are now being hit by a sharp adverse turn in their terms of trade due to the recent fall in global commodity prices. Still, the fundamental improvements I’ve cited leave many EMEs better positioned than in the past to weather those times in the cycle when the external environment becomes more difficult. The impact that changes in Fed policy can have beyond our borders has led to calls for us to do more to internalize those impacts, or even further, to internationally coordinate policymaking. As I’ve already noted, we are mindful of the global effects of Fed policy, given the central place of U.S. markets in the global financial system and the dollar’s status as the global reserve currency. Accordingly, we seek to conduct policy transparently and based on clear principles. Promoting growth and stability in the U.S., I believe, is the most important contribution we can make to growth and stability worldwide. There is, of course, the argument that Fed policy has been too accommodative for too long, creating risks for financial stability worldwide. Here, I think it’s important to consider carefully the counterfactual. Would countries beyond our borders really have been better off with a weaker U.S. economy – an economy that might have required exceptional monetary policy accommodation for a much longer period of time?