' s monetary policy strategy, policy tools, and communication practices and will include outreach to businesses, community groups, academics, and other interested parties. as chairman powell has indicated, with labor market conditions close to maximum employment and inflation near our 2 percent objective, now is a good time to take stock of how the federal reserve formulates, conducts, and communicates monetary policy. as part of this outreach effort, the federal reserve system will hold a research conference june 4 - 5, 2019, hosted by the federal reserve bank of chicago and featuring outside speakers and panelists. the federal reserve board and reserve district banks will also be holding outreach and public events as we seek views from a wide range of interested parties. beginning in the summer of 2019, the fomc will draw on what it has learned from the conference and the system outreach events as it assesses possible ways in which the fed's strategy, tools, and communication practices might evolve to best achieve, on a sustained basis, the twin goals of maximum employment and price stability assigned to it by the congress. we anticipate making our findings public after the fomc concludes this review sometime in 2020. concluding thoughts the u. s. economy enters 2019 after a year of strong growth, with inflation near our 2 percent objective, and with the unemployment rate near 50 - year lows. that said, growth and growth prospects in other economies around the world have moderated somewhat in recent months, and overall financial conditions have tightened materially. these recent developments in the global economy and financial markets represent crosswinds to the u. s. economy. if these crosswinds are sustained, appropriate forward looking monetary policy should seek to offset them to keep the economy as close as possible to our dual - mandate objectives of maximum employment and price stability. as we have long said, monetary policy is not on a preset course. going forward, we need, i believe, to be cognizant of the balance we must strike between being forward looking and preemptive and ( 2 ) maximizing the odds of being right. for example, were models to predict a surge in inflation, a decision for preemptive hikes before the surge is evident in actual data would need to be balanced against the cost of the model being wrong. speaking for myself, i believe we can afford to be patient about assessing how to adjust our policy stance to achieve and sustain our dual - mandate objectives. we begin the year as close to our assigned

always associate with government ) in designing transition assistance for workers and communities that will provide incentives to change and adapt, rather than incentives to remain stuck in the status quo. strong growth and tight labor markets reduce the likely cost of taking chances for workers, businesses and communities. but change is hard and not everyone is willing or able to pay the price. one of the determinants of how long the u. s. economy can continue to perform at a high level with low inflation is how well we all learn to adapt to the changes that go with the increased competitiveness of the national and international marketplace that is helping to keep our economy growing and inflation low. an important part of the answer to why the u. s. economy has been able to grow so strongly without inflation accelerating has been the recent resurgence in productivity growth. productivity grew strongly from the end of world war ii into the early 1970s, accounting for the rapid increase in american ’ s real incomes over that period. then, around the time of the first oil shock in the early 1970s, productivity growth slowed drastically both here and in other industrial countries, remaining weak in the u. s. through the 1980s and first half of the 1990s. average growth in output per hour in non - farm business was only a little over 1 percent between 1973 and 1995. in the last three years, however, productivity growth has accelerated, reaching an astonishing 4 percent growth in the last two quarters. the growth in productivity has enabled business to pay higher wages without raising prices significantly or eroding profits severely. is the increase in productivity a temporary cyclical response to strong growth or does it presage an upward shift in the productivity growth trend that will make it easier going forward to continue strong growth, rising real incomes and low inflation? that ’ s another one of those silly questions to which no one can honestly claim to know the answer. hypotheses abound about why productivity growth might have accelerated in the mid 1990s. technology clearly has something to do with it. although the telecommunications and information management revolution did not start in the 1990s, it may have been just at the right point by then to offer firms that are facing strong demand and tight labor markets a way to increase their efficiency. in the past, when unemployment remained low for an extended period, economists expected productivity to suffer because firms were forced to hire less skilled workers with less experience – workers whose productivity was likely to be low. however, recent experience suggests – but certainly does not yet prove –