Full address of Federal Reserve Governor Christopher J. Waller at Brookings Institute on January 16:
In the second half of 2023, I gave a series of speeches about the apparent conflict between the strength of economic activity in the third quarter and continued progress toward the Federal Open Market Committee's (FOMC) 2 percent inflation goal.1 I said then that "something's got to give"—either activity needs to moderate, or progress on lowering inflation is going to stop. By late November, the latest economic data left me encouraged that there were signs of moderating economic activity in the fourth quarter, but inflation was still too high.
As of today, the data has come in even better. Real gross domestic product (GDP) is expected to have grown between 1 and 2 percent in the fourth quarter, unemployment is still below 4 percent, and core personal consumption expenditure (PCE) inflation has been running close to 2 percent for the last 6 months. For a macroeconomist, this is almost as good as it gets.
But will it last? Time will tell whether inflation can be sustained on its recent path and allow us to conclude that we have achieved the FOMC's price-stability goal. Time will tell if this can happen while the labor market still performs above expectations. The data we have received the last few months is allowing the Committee to consider cutting the policy rate in 2024. However, concerns about the sustainability of these data trends requires changes in the path of policy to be carefully calibrated and not rushed. In the end, I am feeling more confident that the economy can continue along its current trajectory.