the grip of what the eminent harvard professor joseph schumpeter many years ago called “ creative destruction, ” the continuous process by which emerging technologies push out the old. standards of living rise when incomes created by the productive facilities employing older, increasingly obsolescent, technologies are marshaled to finance the newly produced capital assets that embody cutting - edge technologies. this is the process by which wealth is created, incremental step by incremental step. it presupposes a continuous churning of an economy as the new displaces the old. although this process of productive obsolescence has ancient roots, it appears to have taken on a quickened pace in recent years and changed its character. the remarkable, and partly fortuitous, coming together of the technologies that make up what we label it – information technologies – has begun to alter, fundamentally, the manner in which we do business and create economic value, often in ways that were not readily foreseeable even a decade ago. before the advent of what has become a veritable avalanche of information technology innovation, most twentieth - century business decisionmaking had been hampered by dated and incomplete information about customer preferences in markets and flows of materials through a company ’ s production systems. relevant information was hours, days, or even weeks old. accordingly, business managers had to double up on materials and people to protect against the inevitable misjudgments that were part and parcel of production planning. ample inventory levels were needed to ensure output schedules, and backup teams of people and machines were required to maintain quality control and respond to unanticipated developments. of course, large remnants of imprecision still persist, but the remarkable surge in the availability of real - time information in recent years has sharply reduced the degree of uncertainty confronting business management. this has enabled businesses to remove large swaths of now unnecessary inventory, and dispense with much programmed worker and capital redundancies. as a consequence, growth in output per work hour has accelerated, elevating the standards of living of the average american worker. intermediate production and distribution processes, so essential when information and quality control were poor, are being bypassed and eventually eliminated. the proliferation of internet web sites is promising to alter significantly the way large parts of our distribution system are managed. moreover, technological innovations have spread far beyond the factory floor and retail and wholesale distribution channels. biotech, for example, is revolutionizing medicine and agriculture, with far reaching consequences

, local government, and community organizations offered their perspectives on the relative importance of the fed ’ s dual mandate goals. as i and my fed colleagues who have participated in these events will attest, they have provided us with valuable perspectives on the economy that we would not otherwise be able to glean from aggregate economic statistics. in coming regularly scheduled meetings, the fomc will undertake its assessment of our monetary policy strategy, tools, and communication practices. this assessment will be informed by what we ’ ve heard at this conference, by our listening sessions in the federal reserve districts, and by the work of system staff. when the committee tackles important issues, we take the time for wide - ranging and candid discussions, and so i expect our deliberations will continue over several meetings for the remainder of this year. we will share our findings with the public when we have completed our review, likely during the first half of next year. thank you and let ’ s move directly to our first session. 1 the views expressed are my own and not necessarily those of other federal reserve board members or federal open market committee participants. i would like to thank ellen meade for assistance in preparing these remarks. return to text 2 in january 2009, when longer - run projections were added to the summary of economic projections, the midpoint of the central tendency for the longer - run normal unemployment rate was 4. 9 percent. in march 2019, the median of the longer - run normal unemployment rate was 4. 3 percent. return to text 2 / 2 bis central bankers'speeches