November 7, 2023
Using economic data to understand the economy
Governor Christopher J. Waller
At the “Beyond the Numbers” conference hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri
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Thank you, Katrina, for having me here today.1 As I hope you all know, the Federal Reserve uses monetary policy to achieve its dual mandate: maximum employment and price stability. One of my key tasks as a policymaker is to help determine what policy stance will bring the economy closer to this reality. To do this, I have to try to understand where the economy is and where it is going. And to do this, I look at a variety of economic and financial data.
I have a team of consultants who help me compile and analyze data. But you don’t need your own team of economists to get a good idea of what’s happening in the U.S. economy. The staff here at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis has developed an easy-to-use interactive tool that puts economic data right at your fingertips. FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data) enables the public to access, display and analyze thousands of economic data series. I often use FRED when I want to look up current and historical data.
In fact, for today’s talk I thought I might use FRED to show some of the data sets I use when thinking about the economy. I’ll start with some slides on economic activity and then move on to the labor market and inflation. I’ll explain how I interpret this data, what it has meant for policy so far, and some caveats we should all keep in mind when using data. I will not go into my expectations for future monetary policy.
Much of what I have shared today comes from a speech on the economic outlook that I gave a few weeks ago. If you would like to read the full remarks, you can search for them on the Board’s website.2 I hope you do. But even more, I hope these slides today helped show that you and your students don’t have to wait for a speech from a Fed policymaker to learn about the current state of the U.S. economy. With FRED you can access and analyze the data yourself. I hope you enjoyed reviewing these data sets as much as I did, or that I at least sparked some ideas for using this tool in the classroom. Thank you very much.
1. The views expressed here are my own and not necessarily those of my colleagues on the Federal Open Market Committee or the Federal Reserve Board. Back to text
2. See Christopher J. Waller (2023), “Something’s Got to Give,” speech delivered at the Distinguished Speaker Seminar, European Economics and Financial Center, London, United Kingdom, October 18. Back to text
Last updated: November 7, 2023