Roosevelt Rundown

What the Fed Should Know about Disinflation

September 15, 2023

And why they should pause interest rate hikes.

The Roosevelt Rundown features our top stories of the week.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell at a meeting of the Financial Stability Oversight Council in July 2023.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell at a meeting of the Financial Stability Oversight Council in July 2023. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)


Supply Is Driving Disinflation

The Federal Reserve will announce next week whether its aggressive interest rate hikes will continue.

They shouldn’t continue, Roosevelt’s Mike Konczal argues on a new episode of The Indicator from Planet Money.

As his research shows, the primary driver of inflation has been on the supply side, rather than the demand side the Fed is targeting.

“A lot of the slowdown in inflation has happened basically because we’ve been completing the reopening, because supply chains have been sorted out,” Konczal explains on the podcast.

To avoid a recession, “. . . the Fed should absolutely pause, and they hopefully are going to do that.”

Read more of Konczal’s inflation analysis in his latest brief, and check out coverage of the paper in Paul Krugman’s New York Times column and Axios Macro.

 

A Progressive Take on Permitting Reform

The recent debt ceiling deal included a suite of “permitting reforms” advocated by Sen. Joe Manchin, but which are unlikely to eliminate the true roadblocks to the renewable energy transition.

This week, Roosevelt hosted A Progressive Take on Permitting Reform, a webcast building on Johanna Bozuwa and Dustin Mulvaney’s recent paper to explore how a principle-driven toolkit can help balance speed in renewable deployment with democratic and community participation.

The panel—moderated by Roosevelt’s Rhiana Gunn-Wright—features Bozuwa, Mulvaney, Sonal Jessel, and Howard Crystal.

Watch now, and read the full report.

 

What We’re Talking About

 

What We’re Reading

Banks Provide a Public Service. Let’s Make Them Public Utilities. [co-authored by Roosevelt Fellow Lev Menand] [paywall] – Washington Post

Why a 4-Day Workweek Is on the Table for Autoworkers – NPR

Biden’s Climate Law Is Reshaping Private Investment in the United States – New York Times