No, Brandon didn't do that
Below are excepts from an interesting and quick read regarding energy prices and inflation.
Before we praise central bankers for taming inflation, we should consider their role in causing it. The most commonly cited factor driving the recent surge in inflation is high energy prices, but no central banker has yet acknowledged the well-founded doubt that last year’s energy-price shock caused the surge in non-energy prices. What central bankers have done is to point to a second culprit: supply-chain disruptions.
But here, too, the shock in question was temporary. Most macroeconomic models – not to mention common sense – indicate that a temporary supply shock should cause a similarly temporary increase in the price level. This means that, if recent inflation had been caused by the two supply shocks of 2022, it would have initially risen above the canonical 2% target, then fallen below it as the shocks faded. This is not the case in the United States or in the eurozone: stripping out the impact of falling energy prices, inflation continues to run at about 4-5%.
So, why has inflation persisted? One likely reason is that we are seeing the delayed effects of past monetary policy. In 2020 and 2021, when the global economy was being ravaged by the pandemic, central banks began purchasing huge amounts of assets. During the first few months of 2020, the policy served a clear purpose: to stabilize financial markets. But even after that goal was achieved, central banks continued to buy up assets. Policymakers’ decision to continue massive asset purchases was an overreaction to a temporary shock.
Nobody should be surprised that this policy had inflationary consequences, or that they took time to materialize. As Milton Friedman explained, monetary policy affects the economy with “long and variable lags.” Assuming a lag of 12-24 months, central banks’ pandemic asset purchases would have begun affecting inflation by the end of 2021, with the most powerful effects coming in 2022-23 – a time of notable labor-market tightness. The state of the labor market would explain why pandemic monetary policy did more to fuel core inflation than did the previous wave of unconventional monetary policy, in 2015-18.
It is difficult to know precisely how much blame for current inflation can be attributed to pandemic asset purchases. But, based on the European Central Bank’s own assessment of its 2015-18 policy, one might conclude that the purchases contributed a couple of percentage points. So, if the US Federal Reserve and the ECB had ended their asset purchases once financial markets were stabilized in early 2020, core inflation today might be in the region of 3%, rather than 5%.
While American and European central bankers might prefer to focus on their progress in tamping down inflation, there is no use pretending that they did not play a significant role in creating the problem.
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/central-bank-asset-purchases-contribution-to-inflation-us-eurozone-by-daniel-gros-2023-08
Before we praise central bankers for taming inflation, we should consider their role in causing it. The most commonly cited factor driving the recent surge in inflation is high energy prices, but no central banker has yet acknowledged the well-founded doubt that last year’s energy-price shock caused the surge in non-energy prices. What central bankers have done is to point to a second culprit: supply-chain disruptions.
But here, too, the shock in question was temporary. Most macroeconomic models – not to mention common sense – indicate that a temporary supply shock should cause a similarly temporary increase in the price level. This means that, if recent inflation had been caused by the two supply shocks of 2022, it would have initially risen above the canonical 2% target, then fallen below it as the shocks faded. This is not the case in the United States or in the eurozone: stripping out the impact of falling energy prices, inflation continues to run at about 4-5%.
So, why has inflation persisted? One likely reason is that we are seeing the delayed effects of past monetary policy. In 2020 and 2021, when the global economy was being ravaged by the pandemic, central banks began purchasing huge amounts of assets. During the first few months of 2020, the policy served a clear purpose: to stabilize financial markets. But even after that goal was achieved, central banks continued to buy up assets. Policymakers’ decision to continue massive asset purchases was an overreaction to a temporary shock.
Nobody should be surprised that this policy had inflationary consequences, or that they took time to materialize. As Milton Friedman explained, monetary policy affects the economy with “long and variable lags.” Assuming a lag of 12-24 months, central banks’ pandemic asset purchases would have begun affecting inflation by the end of 2021, with the most powerful effects coming in 2022-23 – a time of notable labor-market tightness. The state of the labor market would explain why pandemic monetary policy did more to fuel core inflation than did the previous wave of unconventional monetary policy, in 2015-18.
It is difficult to know precisely how much blame for current inflation can be attributed to pandemic asset purchases. But, based on the European Central Bank’s own assessment of its 2015-18 policy, one might conclude that the purchases contributed a couple of percentage points. So, if the US Federal Reserve and the ECB had ended their asset purchases once financial markets were stabilized in early 2020, core inflation today might be in the region of 3%, rather than 5%.
While American and European central bankers might prefer to focus on their progress in tamping down inflation, there is no use pretending that they did not play a significant role in creating the problem.
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/central-bank-asset-purchases-contribution-to-inflation-us-eurozone-by-daniel-gros-2023-08
