eighty - one percent of households surveyed in 1998 indicated that they used in - person visits as a means for conducting business with a financial institution, and 86 percent of small businesses indicated that during 1998 they relied upon such visits as their most common method for dealing with their primary financial institution. only 6 percent of households reported having used a computer to conduct business with a financial institution in 1998. electronic access to financial institutions, no doubt, will continue to grow, and the next federal reserve survey of consumer finances will provide valuable data about the changes through 2001. in the meantime, the facts i have highlighted and other data already available demonstrate that the use of electronic technologies for dealing with a financial institution deserves monitoring and continuing analysis and evaluation. it is also worth noting that some technology - driven financial services have been commercial failures. in the world of payments, stored value cards are clearly technically viable but have yet to be widely used. the “ cashless society ” appears little closer today than when that phrase began to be used forty years ago. one likely explanation is that network effects are important in determining which innovations succeed or fail. in many retail payment experiments, too few consumers or merchants use a payment network or a new instrument for these technology - driven services to become economically viable. in concluding, the paper has added a note of caution to the discussions of the potential welfareimproving elements of finance in the information age. though i have taken exception to some of the detailed analysis in the paper and noted that other financial products likely have been enhanced by the emergence of new technologies, it is clear that technology has not changed all elements of the delivery of financial services or cured all market imperfections. likewise, not all technology - derived financial products have achieved commercial success. the authors are to be commended for reinforcing these common - sense lessons. by doing so they give further impetus to both financial literacy and regulations that foster market experimentation and development while appropriately protecting those that need to be protected and responding to market imperfections when they appear.

ratio now at its highest level since the end of the recession. however, measures of aggregate wage growth have remained quite subdued, which suggests there is still some slack in the labor market. an important question is how to reconcile these cross - currents. i continue to anticipate that consumption and housing activity will expand at a moderate pace this year. continued job and wage gains, combined with still - low energy prices, should sustain real disposable income growth and support consumer spending. the housing market should remain on a solid trajectory, supported by rising employment and low mortgage rates. in contrast to previous years, fiscal policy should also provide a moderate stimulus this year. i believe that these positive factors will be sufficient to offset weakness in other areas, such as net exports and fixed business investment that will continue to be adversely impacted by the still - strong dollar, weak foreign growth, and low energy and commodity prices. putting this all together, i expect real gdp growth of about 2 percent in 2016, slightly below the average pace of growth in this expansion, but a bit above my estimate of the potential growth of the u. s. economy. if this materializes, then we should see some further reduction in the unemployment rate to around 4¾ percent – my estimate of the rate that i view as consistent with stable inflation over the long term. turning to the outlook for inflation, on a year - over - year basis, both headline and core inflation have recently risen above the low levels that prevailed through most of 2015. nevertheless, inflation still remains below the federal reserve ’ s 2 percent objective. as the fomc noted in its march statement, this continued low inflation is partly due to declines in energy prices and non - energy import prices. although energy prices have stopped falling and the dollar has stopped appreciating, earlier movements in these factors still appear to be weighing on inflation. a concern with this long period of low inflation is that it has the potential to reduce inflation expectations, which, in turn, would tend to continue to hold down inflation. as past experience shows, it is difficult to push inflation back up to the central bank ’ s objective if inflation expectations fall meaningfully below that objective. japan ’ s experience is cautionary in this regard. recent evidence on inflation expectations suggests some firming, but there is still cause for concern. although both measures of longer - term inflation compensation based on nominal and inflation - indexed treasury securities as well as some survey measures of inflation expectations have risen