. still, a stabilization in energy prices is not assured. market participants have been repeatedly surprised by the depth and persistence of oil price declines : both spot and far futures oil prices, for example, have fallen in five out of the past six quarters since mid2014. but even after discounting the influence of energy prices, core pce inflation has been stubbornly stuck in the vicinity of 1 - 1 / 4 to 1 - 1 / 2 percent since 2012. 3 most recently, the dollar has played an important role in holding down non - oil import prices, which fell 3 - 1 / 2 percent last year and subtracted an estimated 1 / 2 percentage point from core inflation. 4 should the dollar stabilize, the downward influence on inflation should dissipate. but, as with oil prices, the movement in the value of the dollar has been more persistent than markets and many observers expected, with increases in every quarter since mid - 2014. if the labor market continues to improve, higher resource utilization should also put some upward pressure on inflation going forward. however, the effect of resource utilization on inflation is estimated to be much lower today than in past decades. 5 an important concern about persistently low inflation is that it can lead to a fall in longer - term inflation expectations, making it much more difficult to achieve our inflation target. for the most part, longer - term inflation expectations appear to have remained reasonably stable, though there are some concerning signs. longer - term inflation expectations of professional forecasters and primary dealers have held quite steady in recent years at levels consistent with the fomc ’ s target. however, households ’ inflation expectations appear to have moved down somewhat recently. five - to - 10 - year inflation expectations in the university of michigan see gruber, mccallum, and vigfusson ( 2016 ). core consumer price index ( cpi ) inflation has been 1 / 2 percentage point higher than core pce inflation over the 12 months through january. over the past 15 years, core cpi inflation has averaged about 1 / 4 percentage point more than core pce inflation. much of the recent larger gap is due to differences in the coverage of healthcare services and to differences in the weight accorded to housing services and health - care services. the cpi only covers out - of - pocket expenditures for health - care services, while the pce index covers a much broader range of spending. expenditures on housing are a larger share of the cpi than of the pce index, and prices for

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