Fed rate hikes won’t bring down inflation as long as government spending stays high, paper says

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell proclaimed Friday that the central bank has an “unconditional” responsibility for inflation and expressed confidence that it will “get the job done.” But a paper released at the same Jackson Hole, Wyoming summit where Powell spoke suggests that the Fed can’t do the job itself and actually could make matters worse with aggressive interest rate increases. In the current case, inflation is being driven largely by fiscal spending in response to the Covid crisis, and simply raising interest rates won’t be enough to bring it back down, researchers Francesco Bianchi of Johns Hopkins University and Leonardo Melosi of the Chicago Fed wrote in a white paper released Saturday morning.
Source: CNBC – Bonds