2023, 38th Annual Conference on Macroeconomics Panel, "The Return of Inflation: Why and What to Do About It"

The rise of inflation in most developed countries in 2021 and 2022 caught many central banks off guard. The relative contribution of fiscal stimulus, shocks to commodity prices, COVID-induced tightening of the labor market, bottlenecks in supply chains, and other factors to rising prices remains an open and much-debated question. In a panel discussion at the 2023 Annual Conference on Macroeconomics, Jason Furman of Harvard University, and Ricardo Reis and Silvana Tenreyro of the London School of Economics and Political Science offer their assessment of what caused prices to rise at the fastest pace in over three decades, as well as the impact of current and potential central bank policy responses.