Color Coded Financial Analyses

 

http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/hh/2006/july/testimony.htm

 

 

Yellow :: Good

Red :: Not So Good

 

Testimony of Chairman Ben S. Bernanke
Semiannual Monetary Policy Report to the Congress
Before the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, U.S. Senate
July 19, 2006

 

 

Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, I am pleased to be here again to present the Federal Reserve's Monetary Policy Report to the Congress.

Over the period since our February report, the U.S. economy has continued to expand. Real gross domestic product (GDP) is estimated to have risen at an annual rate of 5.6 percent in the first quarter of 2006. The available indicators suggest that economic growth has more recently moderated from that quite strong pace, reflecting a gradual cooling of the housing market and other factors that I will discuss. With respect to the labor market, more than 850,000 jobs were added, on net, to nonfarm payrolls over the first six months of the year, though these gains came at a slower pace in the second quarter than in the first. Last month the unemployment rate stood at 4.6 percent.

The U.S. economy appears to be in a period of transition. For the past three years or so, economic growth in the United States has been robust. This growth has reflected both the ongoing re-employment of underutilized resources, as the economy recovered from the weakness of earlier in the decade, and the expansion of the economy's underlying productive potential, as determined by such factors as productivity trends and growth of the labor force. Although the rates of resource utilization that the economy can sustain cannot be known with any precision, it is clear that, after several years of above-trend growth, slack in resource utilization has been substantially reduced. As a consequence, a sustainable, non-inflationary expansion is likely to involve a modest reduction in the growth of economic activity from the rapid pace of the past three years to a pace more consistent with the rate of increase in the nation's underlying productive capacity. It bears emphasizing that, because productivity growth seems likely to remain strong, the productive capacity of our economy should expand over the next few years at a rate sufficient to support solid growth in real output.

As I have noted, the anticipated moderation in economic growth now seems to be under way, although the recent erratic growth pattern complicates this assessment. That moderation appears most evident in the household sector. In particular, consumer spending, which makes up more than two-thirds of aggregate spending, grew rapidly during the first quarter but decelerated during the spring. One likely source of this deceleration was higher energy prices, which have adversely affected the purchasing power of households and weighed on consumer attitudes.

The slowing of the housing market may restrain other forms of household spending as well. With homeowners no longer experiencing increases in the equity value of their homes at the rapid pace seen in the past few years, and with the recent declines in stock prices, increases in household net worth are likely to provide less of a boost to consumer expenditures than they have in the recent past. That said, favorable fundamentals, including relatively low unemployment and rising disposable incomes, should provide support for consumer spending. Overall, household expenditures appear likely to expand at a moderate pace, providing continued impetus to the overall economic expansion.

Although growth in household spending has slowed, other sectors of the economy retain considerable momentum. Business investment in new capital goods appears to have risen briskly, on net, so far this year. In particular, investment in nonresidential structures, which had been weak since 2001, seems to have picked up appreciably, providing some offset to the slower growth in residential construction. Spending on equipment and software has also been strong. With a few exceptions, business inventories appear to be well aligned with sales, which reduces the risk that a buildup of unwanted inventories might act to reduce production in the future. Business investment seems likely to continue to grow at a solid pace, supported by growth in final sales, rising backlogs of orders for capital goods, and high rates of profitability. To be sure, businesses in certain sectors have experienced financial difficulties. In the aggregate, however, firms remain in excellent financial condition, and credit conditions for businesses are favorable.

Globally, output growth appears strong. Growth of the global economy will help support U.S. economic activity by continuing to stimulate demand for our exports of goods and services. One downside of the strength of the global economy, however, is that it has led to significant increases in the demand for crude oil and other primary commodities over the past few years. Together with heightened geopolitical uncertainties and the limited ability of suppliers to expand capacity in the short run, these rising demands have resulted in sharp rises in the prices at which those goods are traded internationally, which in turn has put upward pressure on costs and prices in the United States.

Overall, the U.S. economy seems poised to grow in coming quarters at a pace roughly in line with the expansion of its underlying productive capacity. Such an outlook is embodied in the projections of members of the Board of Governors and the presidents of Federal Reserve Banks that were made around the time of the FOMC meeting late last month, based on the assumption of appropriate monetary policy. In particular, the central tendency of those forecasts is for real GDP to increase about 3-1/4 percent to 3-1/2 percent in 2006 and 3 percent to 3-1/4 percent in 2007. With output expanding at a pace near that of the economy's potential, the civilian unemployment rate is expected to finish both 2006 and 2007 between 4-3/4 percent and 5 percent, close to its recent level.

I turn now to the inflation situation. As I noted, inflation has been higher than we expected at the time of our last report. Much of the upward pressure on overall inflation this year has been due to increases in the prices of energy and other commodities and, in particular, to the higher prices of products derived from crude oil. Gasoline prices have increased notably as a result of the rise in petroleum prices as well as factors specific to the market for ethanol. The pickup in inflation so far this year has also been reflected in the prices of a range of non-energy goods and services, as strengthening demand may have given firms more ability to pass energy and other costs through to consumers. In addition, increases in residential rents, as well as in the imputed rent on owner-occupied homes, have recently contributed to higher core inflation.

Although the costs of energy and other raw materials are important, labor costs are by far the largest component of business costs. Anecdotal reports suggest that the labor market is tight in some industries and occupations and that employers are having difficulty attracting certain types of skilled workers. To date, however, moderate growth in most broad measures of nominal labor compensation and the ongoing increases in labor productivity have held down the rise in unit labor costs, reducing pressure on inflation from the cost side. Employee compensation per hour is likely to rise more quickly over the next couple of years in response to the strength of the labor market. Whether faster increases in nominal compensation create additional cost pressures for firms depends in part on the extent to which they are offset by continuing productivity gains. Profit margins are currently relatively wide, and the effect of a possible acceleration in compensation on price inflation would thus also depend on the extent to which competitive pressures force firms to reduce margins rather than pass on higher costs.

The public's inflation expectations are another important determinant of inflation. The Federal Reserve must guard against the emergence of an inflationary psychology that could impart greater persistence to what would otherwise be a transitory increase in inflation. After rising earlier this year, measures of longer-term inflation expectations, based on surveys and on a comparison of yields on nominal and inflation-indexed government debt, have edged down and remain contained. These developments bear watching, however.

Finally, the extent to which aggregate demand is aligned with the economy's underlying productive potential also influences inflation. As I noted earlier, FOMC participants project that the growth in economic activity should moderate to a pace close to that of the growth of potential both this year and next. Should that moderation occur as anticipated, it should help to limit inflation pressures over time.

The FOMC projections, which now anticipate slightly lower growth in real output and higher core inflation than expected in our February report, mirror the somewhat more adverse circumstances facing our economy, which have resulted from the recent steep run-up in energy costs and higher-than-expected inflation more generally. But they also reflect our assessment that, with appropriate monetary policy and in the absence of significant unforeseen developments, the economy should continue to expand at a solid and sustainable pace and core inflation should decline from its recent level over the medium term.

At the same time, because economic forecasting is far from a precise science, we have no choice but to regard all our forecasts as provisional and subject to revision as the facts demand. Thus, policy must be flexible and ready to adjust to changes in economic projections. In particular, as the Committee noted in the statement issued after its June meeting, the extent and timing of any additional firming that may be needed to address inflation risks will depend on the evolution of the outlook for both inflation and economic growth, as implied by our analysis of the incoming information.

Thank you. I would be happy to take questions.