Must-Read: Carmen Reinhart: Inflation, the Fed, and the Big Picture

Must-Read: Carmen Reinhart: Inflation, the Fed, and the Big Picture: “At the end of the day, the US Federal Reserve…

…will base its interest-rate decisions primarily on domestic considerations. While there is more than the usual degree of uncertainty regarding the magnitude of America’s output gap since the financial crisis, there is comparatively less ambiguity now that domestic inflation is subdued. The rest of the world shares that benign inflation environment. As the Fed prepares for its September meeting, its policymakers would do well not to ignore what was overlooked in Jackson Hole: the need to place domestic trends in global and historical context. For now, such a perspective favors policy gradualism.