Teaching About Core Inflation | Bring FRED into the Classroom | November 2023

November 1, 2023 Mariel Alumit StLouis Fed Comments Off on Teaching About Core Inflation | Bring FRED into the Classroom | November 2023
FRED

Focus on Measures of Core Inflation

This handout provides instructions on building the graph below and includes writing prompts for out-of-class assignments.

From the FRED Blog

The post “Gauging underlying inflation” briefly describes the concept of underlying inflation trends and reviews FRED’s substantial repository of measures of trend inflation. You can also check this short video of Mark Wright explaining various inflation measures.

Quiz Yourself on Measures of Core Inflation

The FRED graph shows three personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index data series from the US Bureau of Economic Analysis: the all-items inflation rate (the green dotted line); one inflation rate excluding the energy and housing categories (the blue line); and one inflation rate excluding the food, energy, and housing categories (the red line).

Q1. Between April 2020 and May 2021, which inflation rate was highest?

Q2. Between June 2021 and February 2023, which inflation rate was highest?

Read this FRED Blog post to learn more about those data.

The FRED graph shows two consumer price index (CPI) inflation rates: the all-items inflation rate from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (the black dashed line) and the underlying inflation gauge, full data set measure, from the New York Fed (the red line).

Q1. Between July 2020 and February 2021, which inflation rate was higher?

Q2. Between March 2021 and May 2023, which inflation rate was lower?

Read this FRED Blog post to learn more about those data.

The FRED graph shows two personal consumption expenditures (PCE) inflation rates: the PCE inflation rate from the US Bureau of Economic Analysis (the orange dotted line) and the trimmed mean PCE inflation rate the Dallas Fed (the green dashed line).

Q1. Between April 2020 and January 2021, which inflation rate was higher?

Q2. Between February 2021 and February 2023, which inflation rate was higher?

Read this FRED Blog post to learn more about those data.

You can share these graphs with your students using this dashboard. To customize this dashboard, just click the “Save to My Account” button at the top of the dashboard.

The post Teaching About Core Inflation | Bring FRED into the Classroom | November 2023 first appeared on St. Louis Fed Economic Research.