July 2002 Monetary Policy Report: Full Text
MONETARY POLICY AND THE ECONOMIC OUTLOOK
MONETARY POLICY AND THE ECONOMIC OUTLOOK
The pace of economic activity in the United States picked up noticeably in the first half of 2002 as some of the powerful forces that had been restraining spending for the preceding year and a half abated. With inventories in many industries having been brought into more comfortable alignment with sales, firms began boosting production around the turn of the year to stem further runoffs of their stocks. And while capital spending by businesses has yet to show any real vigor, the steep contraction of the past year or so appears to have come to an end. Household spending, as it has throughout this cyclical episode, continued to trend up in the first half. With employment stabilizing, the increases in real wages made possible by gains in labor productivity and the effects of a variety of fiscal actions have provided noticeable support to disposable incomes. At the same time, low interest rates have buoyed the purchase of durable goods and the demand for housing. Growth was not strong enough to forestall a rise in the unemployment rate, and slack in product and labor markets, along with declining unit costs as productivity has soared, has helped to keep core inflation low. The exceptionally strong performance of productivity over the past year provides further evidence of the U.S. economy's expanded capacity to provide growth over the longer haul.
The Federal Reserve had moved aggressively in 2001 to counter the weakness that had emerged in aggregate demand; by the end of the year, it had lowered the federal funds rate to 1-3/4 percent, the lowest level in forty years. With only tentative signs that activity was picking up, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) decided to retain that unusual degree of monetary accommodation by leaving the federal funds rate unchanged at its January meeting. Confirmation of an improvement in activity was evident by the time of the March meeting, and the FOMC moved toward an assessment that the risks to the outlook were balanced between its long-run goals of price stability and maximum sustainable economic growth, a view maintained through its June meeting. The durability and strength of the expansion were recognized to depend on the trajectory of final sales. The extent of a prospective strengthening of final sales was--and still is--uncertain, however, and with inflation likely to remain contained, the Committee has chosen to maintain an accommodative stance of policy, leaving the federal funds rate at its level at the end of last year.
The economy expanded especially rapidly early in the year. As had been anticipated, much of the first quarter's strength in production resulted from the efforts of firms to limit a further drawdown of inventories after the enormous liquidation in the fourth quarter of 2001. With respect to first-quarter sales, purchases of light motor vehicles dropped back from their extraordinary fourth-quarter level, but other consumer spending increased substantially. Housing starts, too, jumped early in the year--albeit with the help of weather conditions favorable for building in many parts of the country--and spending on national defense moved sharply higher. All told, real GDP is now estimated to have increased at an annual rate in excess of 6 percent in the first quarter.
Economic activity appears to have moved up further in recent months but at a slower pace than earlier in the year. Industrial production has continued to post moderate gains, and nonfarm payrolls edged up in the second quarter after a year of nearly steady declines. However, several factors that had contributed importantly to the outsized gain of real output in the first quarter appear to have made more modest contributions to growth in the second quarter. Available data suggest that the swing in inventory investment was considerably smaller in the second quarter than in the first. Consumer spending has advanced more slowly of late, and while the construction of new homes has expanded further, its contribution to the growth of real output has not matched that of earlier in the year.
Notable crosscurrents remain at work in the outlook for economic activity. Although some of the most recent indicators have been encouraging, businesses still appear to be reluctant to add appreciably to workforces or to boost capital spending, presumably until they see clearer signs of improving prospects for sales and profits. These concerns, as well as ongoing disclosures of corporate accounting irregularities and lapses in corporate governance, have pulled down equity prices appreciably on balance this year. The accompanying decline in net worth is likely to continue to restrain household spending in the period ahead, and less favorable financial market conditions could reinforce business caution.
Nevertheless, a number of factors are likely to boost activity as the economy moves into the second half of 2002. With the inflation-adjusted federal funds rate barely positive, monetary policy should continue to provide substantial support to the growth of interest-sensitive spending. Low interest rates also have allowed businesses and households to strengthen balance sheets by refinancing debt on more favorable terms. Fiscal policy actions in the form of lower taxes, investment incentives, and higher spending are providing considerable stimulus to aggregate demand this year. Foreign economic growth has strengthened and, together with a decline in the foreign exchange value of the dollar, should bolster U.S. exports. Finally, the exceptional performance of productivity has supported household and business incomes while relieving pressures on price inflation, a combination that augurs well for the future.
Monetary Policy, Financial Markets, and the Economy over the First Half of 2002
The information reviewed by the FOMC at its meeting of January 29 and 30 seemed on the whole to indicate that economic activity was bottoming out and that a recovery might already be under way. Consumer spending had held up remarkably well, and the rates of decline in manufacturing production and business purchases of durable equipment and software had apparently moderated toward the end of 2001. In addition, the expectation that the pace of inventory runoff would slow after several quarters of substantial and growing liquidation constituted another reason for anticipating that economic activity would improve in the period immediately ahead. Nonetheless, looking beyond the near term, the FOMC faced considerable uncertainty about the strength of final demand. Because household spending had not softened to the usual extent during the recession, it appeared likely to have only limited room to pick up over coming quarters. Intense competitive pressures were thought to be constraining the growth of profits, which could damp investment and equity prices. At the same time, the outlook for continued subdued inflation remained favorable given the reduced utilization of resources and the further passthrough of earlier declines in energy prices. Taken together, these conditions led the FOMC to leave the stance of monetary policy unchanged, keeping its target for the federal funds rate at 1-3/4 percent. In light of the tentative nature of the evidence suggesting that the upturn in final demand would be sustained, the FOMC decided to retain its assessment that the more important risk to achieving its long-run objectives remained economic weakness--the possibility that growth would fall short of the rate of increase in the economy's potential and that resource utilization would fall further.
When the FOMC met on March 19, economic indicators had turned even more positive, providing encouraging evidence that the economy was recovering from last year's recession. Consumer spending had remained brisk in the early part of the year, the decline in business expenditures on equipment and software appeared to have about run its course, and housing starts had turned back up. Industrial production, which had been falling for nearly a year and a half, increased in January and February as businesses began to meet more of the rise in sales from current production and less from drawing down inventories. Indications that an expansion had taken hold led to noticeable increases in broad stock indexes and in long-term interest rates. But the strength of the recovery remained unclear. The outlook for business fixed investment--which would be one key to the strength of economic activity once the thrust from inventory restocking came to an end--was especially uncertain, with anecdotal reports indicating that businesses remained hesitant to enter into major long-term commitments. While the FOMC believed that the fiscal and monetary policies already in place would continue to stimulate economic activity, it considered the questions surrounding the outlook for final demand over the quarters ahead still substantial enough to justify the retention of the current accommodative stance of monetary policy, particularly in light of the relatively high unemployment rate and the prospect that the lack of price pressures would persist. Given the positive tone of the available economic indicators, the FOMC announced that it considered the risks to achieving its long-run objectives as now being balanced over the foreseeable future.
By the time of the May 7 FOMC meeting, it had become evident that economic activity had expanded rapidly early in 2002. But the latest statistical data and anecdotal reports suggested that the expansion was moderating considerably in the second quarter and that the extent to which final demand would strengthen was still unresolved. Business sentiment remained gloomy as many firms had significantly marked down their own forecasts of growth in sales and profits over coming quarters. These revised projections, along with the uncertainty surrounding the robustness of the overall economic recovery, had contributed to sizable declines in market interest rates and weighed heavily on equity prices, which had dropped substantially between the March and May meetings. The outlook for inflation had remained benign despite some firming in energy prices, as excess capacity in labor and product markets held the pricing power of many firms in check, and the apparent strong uptrend in productivity reduced cost pressures. In these circumstances, the FOMC decided to keep the federal funds rate at its accommodative level of 1-3/4 percent and maintained its view that, against the background of its long-run goals of price stability and sustainable economic growth, the risks to the outlook remained balanced.
Over the next seven weeks, news on the economy did little to clarify questions regarding the vigor of the ongoing recovery. The information received in advance of the June 25-26 meeting of the FOMC continued to suggest that economic activity had expanded in the second quarter, but both the upward impetus from the swing in inventory investment and the growth in final demand appeared to have diminished. In financial markets, heightened concerns about accounting irregularities at prominent corporations and about the outlook for profits had contributed to a substantial decline in equity prices and correspondingly to a further erosion in household wealth. But some cushion to the effects on aggregate demand of the decline in share prices had been provided by the fall in the foreign exchange value of the dollar and the drop in long-term interest rates. Although the FOMC believed that robust underlying growth in productivity, as well as accommodative fiscal and monetary policies, would continue to support a pickup in the rate of increase of final demand over coming quarters, the likely degree of the strengthening remained uncertain. The FOMC decided to keep unchanged its monetary policy stance and its view that the risks to the economic outlook remained balanced.
Economic Projections for 2002 and 2003
The members of the Board of Governors and the Federal Reserve Bank presidents, all of whom participate in the deliberations of the FOMC, expect the economy to expand rapidly enough over the next six quarters to erode current margins of underutilized capital and labor resources. The central tendency of the forecasts for the increase in real GDP over the four quarters of 2002 is 3-1/2 percent to 3-3/4 percent, and the central tendency for real GDP growth in 2003 is 3-1/2 percent to 4 percent. The central tendency of the projections of the civilian unemployment rate, which averaged just under 6 percent in the second quarter of 2002, is that it stays close to this figure for the remainder of the year and then moves down to between 5-1/4 percent and 5-1/2 percent by the end of 2003.
Domestic Developments
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL DEVELOPMENTS IN 2002
The pace of economic activity picked up considerably in the first half of 2002 after being about unchanged, on balance, in the second half of 2001. Final sales advanced modestly as substantial gains in household and government spending were partly offset by weak business fixed investment and a widening gap between imports and exports. In addition, inventory liquidation slowed sharply as businesses stepped up production to bring it more closely in line with the pace of final sales. The increase in real GDP was particularly rapid early in the year, with the first-quarter gain elevated by a steep reduction in the pace of the inventory run-off, a surge in defense spending, and a weather-induced spurt in construction. Real GDP is currently estimated to have risen at an annual rate of just over 6 percent in the first quarter and appears to have posted a more moderate gain in the second quarter.
Private payroll employment declined through April, and at midyear the unemployment rate stood somewhat above its average in the fourth quarter of 2001. Core inflation--which excludes the direct influences of the food and energy sectors--remained subdued through May, held down by slack in resource utilization and continued sizable advances in labor productivity. Overall inflation was boosted by a surge in energy prices in March and April, but energy prices have since retreated a bit. Inflation expectations remained in check in the first half of this year.
As judged by declines in most interest rates over the first half of the year, financial market participants have marked down their expectation of the vigor of the economic expansion. Interest rates, along with most equity indexes, rose noticeably toward the end of the first quarter in reaction to generally stronger-than-expected economic data. But Treasury yields and equity prices more than rolled back those increases on renewed questions about the strength of the rebound in the economy, including growing uncertainty regarding prospective corporate profits and concerns about escalating geopolitical tensions and about the governance and transparency of U.S. corporations. Private demands on credit markets moderated in the first half the year, as businesses substantially curbed their net borrowing. For the most part, this reduction reflected further declines in business investment, a pickup in operating profits, and a return to net equity issuance. But, in addition, lenders became more cautious and selective, especially for borrowers of marginal credit quality.
Market perceptions that the recovery in the United States might turn out to be less robust than anticipated also put downward pressure on the foreign exchange value of the dollar as measured against the currencies of our major trading partners, especially during the second quarter of 2002. Central banks in some foreign countries, including Canada, tightened policy as growth firmed. The euro-area economy recovered modestly during the first half, and some brighter signs were evident in Japan. In contrast, the dollar strengthened on balance against the currencies of our other important trading partners; in particular, the Mexican peso lost ground, and financial markets reacted to political and economic problems in several South American countries.
The Household Sector
Household spending began the year on a strong note and continued to rise in the second quarter. Further gains in disposable income have supported a solid underlying pace of spending. The decline in stock prices in the first half of 2002 reduced household wealth, and the debt-service burden remained high, but financial stress among households to date has been limited.
Consumer Spending
Real consumer expenditures increased at an annual rate of 3-1/4 percent in the first quarter. Demand for motor vehicles dropped from an extraordinary fourth-quarter pace, but purchases remained supported in part by continued large incentive packages. Outlays for other goods and services advanced smartly in the first quarter. In the second quarter, the rate of increase in consumer spending looks to have eased somewhat. Motor vehicle purchases were little changed, and most other major categories of consumer spending likely posted smaller gains than earlier in the year.
Real disposable personal income moved sharply higher in the first quarter and appears to have risen a little further in the second quarter. Wages and salaries have increased only moderately this year. But tax payments have fallen markedly; last year's legislation lowered withheld tax payments again this year, and final payments this spring on tax obligations for 2001 were substantially below last year's level (likely related at least in part to a decline in capital gains realized last year). All told, real disposable income increased at an annual rate of 8 percent between the fourth quarter of last year and May. However, household net worth has likely fallen further because the negative effect of the decline in stock prices has been only partly offset by an apparent continued appreciation in the value of residential real estate. According to the flow of funds accounts, by the end of the first quarter, the ratio of household net worth to disposable income had reversed close to two-thirds of its run-up in the second half of the 1990s; this ratio has undoubtedly registered additional declines since the end of March. Consumer sentiment improved over the first several months of the year, with indexes from both the Conference Board and the Michigan Survey Research Center reversing last fall's sharp deterioration. However, both indexes have given up some of those gains more recently.
The personal saving rate increased in the first half of this year, as the decline in wealth over the past two years likely held down consumer spending relative to disposable personal income. In May, the saving rate stood at 3 percent of disposable income, up from an average of 1-1/2 percent over 2001. Movements in the saving rate have been very erratic over the past year, reflecting cyclical factors, the timing of tax cuts, and adjustments in incentives to purchase motor vehicles.
Residential Investment
Real residential investment increased at an annual rate of about 15 percent in the first quarter and the level of activity appears to have remained robust in the second quarter. The first-quarter surge was spurred partly by unseasonably warm and dry winter weather, which apparently encouraged builders to move forward some of their planned construction. At the same time, underlying housing activity has been supported by the gains in income and confidence noted above, and, importantly, by low interest rates on mortgages. In the single-family sector, starts averaged an annual rate of 1.35 million units over the first five months of the year--up 6-1/2 percent from the already buoyant pace registered in 2001. Sales of existing homes jumped in early 2002 after moving sideways during the preceding three years; sales of new homes have also been running quite high in recent months.
Home prices have continued to move up strongly. For example, over the year ending in the first quarter, the constant-quality price index for new homes rose 5-1/4 percent, and the repeat-sales price index for existing homes was up 6-1/4 percent. Despite these increases, low mortgage rates have kept housing affordable. Rates on thirty-year conventional fixed-rate loans averaged less than 7 percent in the first half of this year, and rates on adjustable-rate loans continued the downtrend that began in early 2001. The share of median household income required to finance the purchase of a median-price house is close to its average for the past ten years and well below the levels that prevailed in the 1970s and 1980s.
In the multifamily sector, housing starts averaged 340,000 units at an annual rate over the first five months of the year, a pace close to the average of the previous five years. However, conditions in this market have deteriorated somewhat during the past year. In the first quarter, the vacancy rate for apartments spiked to the highest level since the late 1980s, and rents and property values were below year-earlier readings.
Household Finance
As it did last year, household debt appears to have expanded at more than an 8 percent annual rate during the first half of 2002. Although consumer credit (debt not secured by real estate) has increased, the bulk of the expansion in household debt has come from a sizable buildup of home mortgage debt. Refinancing activity has fallen below last year's record pace, but it has remained strong as households have continued to extract a portion of the accumulated equity in their homes.
The aggregate household debt-service burden--the ratio of estimated minimum scheduled payments on mortgage and consumer debt to disposable personal income--although still elevated, has moved little this year. The effect of the fast pace of household borrowing on the debt burden has been offset by lower interest rates and the brisk growth in disposable income. On balance, indicators of credit quality do not suggest much further deterioration in the financial condition of households. While delinquency rates for subprime borrowers have risen further for auto loan pools and have stayed high for mortgages, mortgage delinquencies for all borrowers have changed little, and delinquencies on credit card accounts at banks have not risen significantly since the mid-1990s. The number of personal bankruptcy filings also has essentially moved sideways this year, albeit at a historically high rate. Lenders have apparently reacted to these indicators of household credit quality by tightening standards for consumer loans, as reported on the Federal Reserve's Senior Loan Officer Opinion surveys. Standards for mortgage loans, however, have changed little, and, on the whole, credit appears to have remained readily available to the household sector.
The Business Sector
Spending in the business sector appears to have bottomed out recently, but a strong recovery has not yet taken hold. Real business fixed investment, which declined sharply last year, fell again in the first quarter, but seems to have firmed in the second quarter. Excess capacity in some sectors and uncertainty about the pace of the economic expansion are likely still restraining equipment demand, but rising output, improving corporate profits, and continuing technological advances appear to be working in the opposite direction. Many businesses have worked off their excess stocks, and the substantial inventory runoff that began in the first quarter of last year seems to be drawing to a close. The combination of higher profits and weak investment spending has led to a drop in borrowing by the nonfinancial business sector thus far this year.
Fixed Investment
Real business spending on equipment and software (E&S) was little changed in the first quarter after having dropped sharply last year. In the high-tech category, real expenditures moved up in the first quarter after a double-digit decline in 2001. Outlays for computers posted large gains in inflation-adjusted terms in both the fourth and first quarters; many businesses apparently postponed computer replacement over much of last year but now seem to be taking advantage of ongoing technological progress and the associated large declines in prices. In contrast, real expenditures for communications equipment were little changed in the first quarter after having plunged by one-third during 2001. Excess capacity in the provision of telecom services is continuing to weigh heavily on the demand for communications equipment. Business outlays for software edged down in real terms in the first quarter.
Real spending on transportation equipment dropped in the first quarter. Outlays for aircraft shrank dramatically as the reduction in orders after last year's terrorist attacks began to show through to spending. Outlays for motor vehicles fell sharply early in the year owing to weakness in the market for heavy trucks and a reported reduction in fleet sales to rental companies related to the downturn in air travel. Real E&S spending outside of the high-tech and transportation categories moved up in the first quarter after sizable declines in the three preceding quarters. This pattern probably reflects the deceleration and subsequent acceleration in business output, which is an important determinant of spending in this category.
In the second quarter, real E&S spending likely rose, borne along by increases in sales and a rebound in profits. Incoming data on orders and shipments suggest that real outlays for high-tech equipment advanced and that expenditures for other nontransportation equipment also rose. Spending on aircraft probably contracted further, but orders for heavy trucks surged this spring, as some companies reportedly shifted purchases forward in anticipation of stricter emissions requirements that are scheduled to take effect in the fall. Because of lags in the ordering and building of new equipment, the provision for partial expensing in the Job Creation and Worker Assistance Act passed by the Congress in early March will likely bolster investment spending gradually.
Real outlays for nonresidential structures registered a very large decline in the first quarter after having slipped appreciably in 2001. Outlays for office and industrial structures, lodging facilities, and public utilities dropped substantially. Vacancy rates for offices jumped in the first quarter to their highest level since the mid-1990s; in addition, rents and property values were noticeably below their levels one year earlier. Vacancy rates have risen dramatically in the industrial sector as well. Construction of drilling structures also contracted sharply in the first quarter, thereby continuing the downtrend that began in the middle of last year in the wake of the decline in the prices of oil and natural gas from their peaks a few quarters earlier. Incoming data point to further declines in spending for nonresidential structures in the second quarter.
Inventory Investment
Businesses ran off inventories at an annual rate of nearly $30 billion in the first quarter. This drawdown followed a much larger liquidation--at an annual rate of roughly $120 billion--in the fourth quarter, and the associated step-up in production contributed almost 3-1/2 percentage points to the first-quarter increase in real GDP. Book-value data on inventories outside of the motor vehicle sector point to a further slackening of the drawdown more recently. Since last fall, inventory-sales ratios have more than reversed the run-up that occurred as the economy softened. Currently, inventories do not appear to be excessive for the economy as a whole, although industry reports suggest that overhangs persist in a few areas. In contrast to inventories in other sectors, motor vehicle stocks increased in the first half of this year, as automakers boosted production in order to rebuild stocks that had been depleted by the robust pace of sales in late 2001. Motor vehicle inventories were no longer lean as of the middle of this year.
Corporate Profits and Business Finance
The economic profits of the U.S. nonfinancial corporate sector grew 5 percent at a quarterly rate in the first quarter of this year after a surge of 13-3/4 percent in the fourth quarter of 2001. The corresponding ratio of profits to sector GDP has edged up to 8-3/4 percent, reversing a portion of the steep decline registered over the preceding few years but remaining well below its peak in the mid-1990s. Early indicators point to further profit gains in the second quarter.
The rise in profits since late 2001, combined with weak capital expenditures and low share repurchase and cash-financed merger activities, have helped keep nonfinancial corporations' need for external funds (the financing gap) below the average of last year. In addition, corporations have turned to the equity markets to raise a portion of their needed external funds: Corporations have sold more new equity than they have retired this year--the first period of net equity issuance in nearly a decade. They have used much of these funds to repay debt. As a result, the growth of nonfinancial business debt appears to have slowed considerably in the first half of 2002 after rapid gains in preceding years.
Much of the growth in nonfinancial business debt this year has been concentrated in the corporate bond market (though issuance has not been quite so strong as in 2001), as firms have taken advantage of historically attractive yields. Many corporations have used the proceeds of their bond offerings to pay down commercial and industrial (C&I) loans at banks and commercial paper. In recent months, however, net corporate bond issuance has slowed, and the contraction in short-term funding appears to have moderated.
About one fifth of total bond offerings over the first half of 2002 have been in the speculative-grade market. This fraction is about unchanged from last year but still well below the proportions seen in the latter half of the 1990s, and speculative-grade bond offerings have been concentrated in the higher quality end of that market. Troubles in the two largest sectors of the market-- telecommunications and energy--have continued to weigh on issuance this year.
Although many businesses have apparently substituted bond debt for shorter-term financing by choice, others, especially investment-grade firms in the telecommunications sector, have done so by necessity: They were pushed out of the commercial paper market or otherwise encouraged by investors and credit-rating agencies to curb their reliance on short-term sources of financing to limit the associated rollover risk. Indeed, commercial paper outstanding ran off sharply in February and early March, when several companies that were perceived as having questionable accounting practices were forced to tap bank lines to pay off maturing commercial paper. With lower-quality borrowers leaving the market in the face of elevated risk spreads, commercial paper outstanding shrank nearly 30 percent in the first half of the year after a sizable decline in 2001.
Some firms that exited the commercial paper market turned, at least temporarily, to banks as an alternative. Nonetheless, on net, commercial and industrial loans at banks have declined this year, reflecting borrowers' preference for lengthening the maturity of their liabilities and the overall reduction in the demand for external financing, noted earlier. To a more limited extent, a somewhat less receptive lending environment probably also weighed on business borrowing at banks. In particular, banks continued to tighten terms and standards on C&I loans on net over the first half of this year, although the fraction of banks that reported having done so fell noticeably in the Federal Reserve's Senior Loan Officer Opinion survey in April. Banks have also imposed stricter underwriting standards and higher fees and spreads on backup lines of credit for commercial paper over most of 2001 and early 2002; banks cited increased concerns about the creditworthiness of issuers and a higher likelihood of lines being drawn down.
Indicators of credit quality still point to some trouble spots in the nonfinancial business sector. The ratio of net interest payments to cash flow has trended up since the mid-1990s for the nonfinancial corporate sector as a whole, with increases most pronounced for weaker speculative-grade firms. The default rate on outstanding corporate bonds has remained quite elevated by historical standards. By contrast, although the delinquency rate on C&I loans at banks has risen a bit further this year, it has stayed well below rates observed in the early 1990s. In part, however, this performance may be attributable to more aggressive loan sales and charge-offs than in the past. It may be that problems have risen more for large firms than for smaller ones, as the increase in C&I loan delinquencies over recent quarters was limited to large banks, where loans to larger firms are more likely to be held. Credit rating downgrades continued to outpace upgrades by a substantial margin, as was the case in the last quarter of 2001. Spreads of corporate bond yields over those on comparable Treasuries have remained high by historical standards and have risen considerably across the credit-quality spectrum for telecom firms. Corporate bond spreads also widened, though to a much smaller extent, for a few highly rated firms in other industries owing to concerns about their accounting practices.
After having surged late last year, growth in commercial mortgage debt dropped back in the first half of this year amid a sharp decline in construction activity. Issuance of commercial mortgage backed securities (CMBS), a major component of commercial mortgage finance, has been especially weak. Nonetheless, investor appetite for CMBS has apparently been strong, as yield spreads have narrowed this year. Delinquency rates on CMBS pools, which had been rising during the early part of the year, seem to have stabilized in recent months, and delinquency rates on commercial mortgages held by banks and insurance companies have remained near their historical lows.
The low level of risk spreads for CMBS suggests that concerns about terrorism insurance have not been widespread in the market for commercial mortgages, and responses to the Federal Reserve's Senior Loan Officer Opinion survey in April indicate that most domestic banks required insurance on less than 10 percent of the loans being used to finance high-profile or heavy-traffic properties. Nonetheless, that fraction was much higher at a few banks, and some credit-rating agencies have placed certain CMBS issues--mainly those backed by high-profile properties--on watch for possible downgrade because of insufficient terrorism insurance.
The Government Sector
The federal unified budget moved into deficit in fiscal 2002 after having posted a substantial surplus in fiscal 2001. The deterioration reflects a sharp drop in tax collections (resulting in part from the effects of the economic downturn, the decline in stock prices, and legislated tax cuts) and unusually large supplemental spending measures. As a consequence, federal debt held by the public increased in the first half of the year after rapid declines during the previous several years. The budgets of states and localities have also been strained by economic events, and many state and local governments have taken steps to relieve these pressures.
Federal Government
Over the first eight months of fiscal year 2002 (October through May) the unified budget recorded a deficit of $147 billion, compared with a surplus of $137 billion over the same period of fiscal year 2001. Nominal receipts were 12 percent lower than during the same period of fiscal 2001, and daily Treasury data since May suggest that receipts have remained subdued. Individual tax payments are running well below last year's pace; this weakness reflects general macroeconomic conditions, the legislated changes in tax policy, and the decline in stock prices and consequent reduction in capital gains realizations in 2001. The extent of the weakness was not widely anticipated--this spring's nonwithheld tax payments, which largely pertain to last year's liabilities, generated the first substantial negative April surprise in revenue collections in a number of years. Corporate tax payments have also dropped from last year's level because of weak profits and the business tax provisions included in the Job Creation and Worker Assistance Act of 2002.
Nominal federal outlays during the first eight months of fiscal 2002 were 10 percent higher than during the same period last year; excluding a drop in net interest payments owing to the current low level of interest rates, outlays were up 14 percent. The rate of increase was especially large for expenditures on income security, health, and national and homeland defense. Real federal expenditures for consumption and gross investment, the part of government spending that is a component of real GDP, rose at an annual rate of roughly 11-1/2 percent in the first calendar quarter of 2002 as defense spending surged. The available data suggest that real federal expenditures for consumption and gross investment increased further in the second quarter.
Federal saving, which equals the unified budget surplus adjusted to conform to the accounting practices followed in the national income and product accounts, has fallen considerably since the middle of last year. Net federal saving, which accounts for the depreciation of government capital, turned negative in the first quarter of this year. At the same time, the net saving of households, businesses, and state and local governments has moved up from its trough of last year. On balance, net national saving as a share of GDP has held roughly steady in the past several quarters after having moved down sharply since 1999.
Federal debt held by the public, which had been declining rapidly over the past few years, grew at a 3-1/4 percent annual rate in the first quarter of 2002 and is estimated to have increased considerably more in the second quarter. The ratio of federal government debt held by the public to nominal GDP fell only slightly in the first quarter following several years of steep declines. In response to the changing budget outlook, the Treasury suspended its buyback operations through mid-August and increased the number of auctions of new five-year notes and ten-year indexed securities.
During the second quarter, the Treasury took unusual steps to avoid breaching its statutory borrowing limit of $5.95 trillion. In early April, it temporarily suspended investments in the Government Securities Investment Fund--the so called G-fund of the Federal Employees' Retirement System. Incoming individual nonwithheld tax receipts later that month allowed the Treasury to reinvest the G-fund assets with an adjustment for interest. Late in May, the Treasury declared a debt ceiling emergency, which allowed it to disinvest a portion of the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund, in addition to the G-fund, to keep its debt from breaching the statutory limit. At the time of the declaration, the Treasury indicated that disinvestments from these two funds, combined with other stopgap measures, would be sufficient to keep it from breaching the debt ceiling only through late June. The Congress approved legislation raising the statutory borrowing limit to $6.4 trillion on June 27.
State and Local Governments
Slow growth of revenue resulting from the economic downturn has also generated a notable deterioration in the fiscal position of many state and local governments over the past year. In response, many states and localities have been trimming spending plans and, in some cases, raising taxes and fees. In addition, many states have been dipping into rainy-day and other reserve funds. Together, these actions are helping to move operating budgets toward balance.
Real consumption and investment spending by state and local governments rose at an annual rate of 4-1/4 percent in the first quarter, but available data suggest that outlays were little changed in the second quarter. Outlays for consumption items seem to have held to only moderate increases in the first half of this year, a step-down from last year's more robust gains. Investment spending rose briskly in the first quarter and retreated in the second quarter; this pattern largely reflects the contour of construction expenditures, which were boosted early in the year by unseasonably warm and dry weather.
Debt growth in the state and local government sector has slowed so far in 2002 from last year's very rapid pace. States and localities have continued to borrow heavily in bond markets to finance capital expenditures and to refund existing obligations, including short-term debt issued last year. The overall credit quality of the sector has remained high despite the fiscal stresses associated with the recent economic slowdown, and yield ratios relative to Treasuries have changed little this year, on net.
The External Sector
Stronger growth in the United States contributed to a widening of U.S. external deficits in the first quarter of this year. The United States has continued to receive large net private financial inflows in 2002, but both inflows and outflows have been at lower levels than in recent years.
Trade and the Current Account
The U.S. deficit on trade in goods and services widened about $27 billion in the first quarter, to nearly $380 billion at an annual rate, as a surge in imports overwhelmed a slower expansion of exports. U.S. net investment income decreased $33 billion to a slight deficit position after recording modest surpluses in all four quarters last year. The U.S. deficit on other income and transfers widened about $9 billion, to nearly $70 billion at an annual rate. The U.S. current account, which is the sum of the above, recorded a deficit in the first quarter of $450 billion at an annual rate, 4.3 percent of GDP and nearly $70 billion larger than the deficit in the fourth quarter of 2001.
Real exports of goods and services increased 3 percent at an annual rate in the first quarter, after five quarters of decline. This improvement resulted from a very large step-up in service receipts, as payments by foreign travelers moved back up to near pre-September 11 levels and other private service receipts increased as well. The real value of exported goods contracted in the first quarter, but at only a 3-1/2 percent annual rate. Goods exports had declined much more steeply in the previous three quarters under the effects of slower output growth abroad, continued appreciation of the dollar, and plunging global demand for high-tech products. The better performance in the first quarter of 2002 included a markedly slower rate of decline of machinery exports and a small increase in exported aircraft. While exports of computers continued to fall, exports of semiconductors rose for the first time in nearly two years. Export prices continued to edge down in the first quarter.
U.S. real imports of goods and services expanded in the first quarter at an 8 percent annual rate. As was the case with exports, a substantial part of the increase came from larger service payments related to increased travel abroad by U.S. residents. Reflecting the rebound in U.S. economic activity, imports of real goods rose at about a 4 percent pace in the first quarter of 2002, the first increase in four quarters, as a decline in oil imports was more than offset by a substantial increase in imports of other goods. Growth of non-oil imports was led by increased imports of computers, autos, and consumer goods. The price of imported non-oil goods declined at about a 2-1/4 percent annual rate, in line with its trend in 2001; prices fell for a wide range of capital goods and industrial supplies.
Declining demand during the second half of last year put the price of West Texas intermediate (WTI) crude oil in December 2001 at around $19 per barrel, its lowest level since mid-1999. Unusually warm winter weather in the United States--along with low prices--helped keep the value of oil imports at a very low level in the first quarter. But oil prices began to rise in February and March as global economic activity picked up and as OPEC reduced its production targets in an agreement with five major non-OPEC producers (Angola, Mexico, Norway, Oman, and Russia). Oil prices remained firm in the second quarter around $26 per barrel amid turmoil in the Middle East, a one-month suspension of oil exports by Iraq, disruption of supply from Venezuela, and increasing global demand. The price of gold also has reacted to heightened geopolitical tensions and moved up more than 13 percent over the first half of 2002.
The Financial Account
The shift in the pattern of U.S. international financial flows observed in the second half of 2001 continued into the first quarter of this year. Influenced by increased economic uncertainty, questions about corporate governance and accounting, and sagging share prices, foreign demand for U.S. equities remained weak. Foreign net purchases of U.S. bonds slowed; although purchases of corporate bonds continued to be robust, demand for agency and Treasury bonds slackened. Nonetheless, because U.S. net purchases of foreign securities also fell off, the contribution of net inflows through private securities transactions to financing the U.S. current account deficit remained at a high level. Preliminary and incomplete data for the second quarter of 2002 suggest a continuation of this pattern.
Slower economic activity, both in the United States and abroad, and reduced merger activity caused direct investment inflows and outflows to drop sharply late last year. Direct investment inflows, which were strong through the first half of 2001, plummeted in the second half. U.S. direct investment abroad stayed at a high level through the third quarter but then fell sharply. Both inflows and outflows remained weak in the first quarter of 2002. Available data point to a pickup of capital inflows from official sources during the first half of 2002, as the recent weakening of the foreign exchange value of the dollar prompted some official purchases.
The Labor Market
Labor markets weakened further in the first few months of the year; they now appear to have stabilized but have yet to show signs of a sustained and substantial pickup. Growth of nominal compensation slowed further in the first part of the year after having decelerated in 2001. With productivity soaring in recent quarters, unit labor costs have fallen sharply.
Employment and Unemployment
After having fallen an average of nearly 160,000 per month in 2001, private payroll employment declined at an average monthly rate of 88,000 in the first quarter and was about unchanged in the second quarter. Employment losses in the manufacturing sector have moderated in recent months, and employment in the help supply services industry--which provides many of its workers to the manufacturing sector--has increased. These two categories, which were a major locus of weakness last year, gained an average of 11,000 jobs per month over the past three months, compared with an average loss of 76,000 jobs per month in the first quarter of the year and 163,000 jobs per month over 2001.
Apart from manufacturing and help supply, private payrolls fell 12,000 per month in the first quarter and declined 8,000 per month in the second quarter. In the second quarter, hiring in construction fell by the same amount as in the first quarter. Retail employment declined somewhat after rising a bit in the first quarter, and the employment gain in services other than help supply was slightly smaller than in the first quarter. However, employment losses in several other categories abated in the second quarter.
The unemployment rate in the second quarter averaged 5.9 percent, up from a reading of 5.6 percent in both the fourth quarter of last year and the first quarter of this year. The higher unemployment rate in recent months is consistent with weak employment gains, and it probably was boosted a bit by the federal temporary extended unemployment compensation program. Because this program provides additional benefits to individuals who have exhausted their regular state benefits, it encourages unemployed individuals to be more selective about taking a job offer and likely draws some people into the labor force to become eligible for these benefits.
Productivity and Labor Costs
Labor productivity has increased rapidly in recent quarters. After rising at an average annual rate of around 1 percent in the first three quarters of last year, output per hour in the nonfarm business sector jumped at an annual rate of 5-1/2 percent in the fourth quarter of last year and 8-1/2 percent in the first quarter of this year. Productivity likely continued to rise in the second quarter, albeit at a slower pace. Labor productivity often rises briskly in the early stages of economic recoveries, but what makes the recent surge unusual is that it followed a period of modest increases, rather than declines. In earlier postwar recessions, productivity deteriorated as firms retained more workers than may have been required to meet reduced production needs. The strength in productivity growth around the beginning of this year suggests that employers may have doubted the durability of the pickup in sales and, therefore, deferred new hiring until they became more convinced of the vigor of the expansion. Smoothing through the recent cyclical fluctuations, productivity advanced at an average annual rate of close to 3-1/2 percent between the fourth quarter of 2000 and the first quarter of this year. Although this pace is unlikely to be sustained, it further bolsters the view that the underlying trend in productivity has moved up since the first half of the 1990s.
The employment cost index (ECI) for private nonfarm businesses increased just under 4 percent during the twelve months ended in March of this year, after rising about 4-1/4 percent in the preceding twelve-month period. The recent small step-down likely reflects the lagged effects of the greater slack in labor markets and lower consumer price inflation. The wages and salaries component and the benefits component of the ECI both decelerated by 1/4 percentage point relative to the preceding year. The slowing in benefits costs occurred despite a 2-1/2 percentage point pickup in health insurance cost inflation, to a 10-1/2 percent rate of increase.
Nominal compensation per hour in the nonfarm business sector--an alternative measure of compensation based on the national income and product accounts--rose 3-1/2 percent during the year ending in the first quarter. This rate represented a sharp slowing from the 7-1/4 percent pace recorded four quarters earlier, which likely had been boosted significantly by stock options; stock options are included in this measure at their value when exercised. The deceleration in this measure of compensation is much more dramatic than in the ECI because the ECI does not include stock options. The moderate increase in nominal compensation combined with the spike in productivity growth led unit labor costs to drop at an annual rate in excess of 5 percent in the first quarter, after a decline of 3 percent in the fourth quarter.
Information about the behavior of compensation in more recent months is limited. Readings on average hourly earnings of production or nonsupervisory workers suggest a further deceleration in wages: The twelve-month change in this series was 3-1/4 percent in June, 3/4 percentage point below the change for the preceding twelve months.
Prices
A jump in energy prices in the spring pushed up overall inflation in the first part of 2002, but core inflation remained subdued. The chain-type price index for personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased at an annual rate of 2-1/4 percent over the first five months of the year, compared with a rise of just over 1 percent for the twelve months of 2001. Core PCE prices rose at an annual rate of just over 1-1/2 percent during the first five months of this year, which was the pace recorded for 2001.
Energy prices rose sharply in March and April but have turned down more recently. Gasoline prices spiked in those two months, as crude oil costs moved higher and retail gasoline margins surged. Since April, gasoline prices have, on balance, reversed a small part of this rise. Natural gas prices stayed low in early 2002 against a backdrop of very high inventories; however, these prices have, on average, moved higher in more recent months. Electricity prices have dropped this year, a move reflecting deregulation of residential prices in Texas as well as lower prices for coal and natural gas, which are used as inputs in electricity generation. All told, energy prices increased at an annual rate of 20 percent over the first five months of the year, reversing a little more than half of last year's decline.
Consumer food prices increased at an annual rate of 1-1/2 percent between December and May. A poor winter crop of vegetables pushed up prices early this year, but supplies subsequently increased and prices came down. In addition, consumer prices for meats and poultry, which began to weaken late last year, remained subdued this spring.
Core inflation was held down over the first five months of the year by continued softness in goods prices, including a significant decline in motor vehicle prices. Non-energy services prices continued to move up at a faster pace than core goods prices, although the very sizable increases in residential rent and the imputed rent of owner-occupied housing have eased off in recent months. The rate of increase in core consumer prices has been damped by several forces. One is the lower level of resource utilization that has prevailed over the past year. Core price increases were also held down by declines in non-oil import prices and the lagged effects of last year's decline in energy prices on firms' costs. In addition, inflation expectations have stayed in check: The Michigan Survey Research Center index of median expected inflation over the subsequent year has rebounded from last fall's highly unusual tumble, but its average in recent months of 2-3/4 percent is below the average reading of 3 percent in 2000.
Like core PCE inflation, inflation measured by the core consumer price index (CPI) has remained subdued. However, the levels of inflation corresponding to these two alternative measures of consumer prices are markedly different: Core PCE inflation was about 1-1/2 percent over the twelve months ended in May, while core CPI inflation was about 2-1/2 percent. This gap is more than 1/2 percentage point larger than the average difference between these inflation measures during the 1990s (based on the current methods used to construct the CPI instead of the official published CPI). The larger differential arises from several factors. First, the PCE price index (unlike the CPI) includes several components for which market-based prices are not available, such as checking services provided by banks without explicit charges; the imputed prices for these components have increased considerably less rapidly in the past couple of years than previously. Second, the substantial acceleration in shelter costs since the late 1990s has provided a larger boost to the CPI than to the PCE price index because housing services have a much larger weight in the CPI. Third, PCE medical services prices--which are largely based on producer price indexes rather than information from the CPI--have increased more slowly than CPI medical services prices over the past couple of years.
The chain-type price index for gross domestic purchases--which captures prices paid for consumption, investment, and government purchases--rose at an annual rate of roughly 1 percent in the first quarter of 2002, putting the four-quarter change at 3/4 percent. This pace represents a marked slowing relative to the 2-1/4 percent rise in the year-earlier period, owing to both a drop in energy prices (as the decline in the second half of 2001 was only partly offset by the increase this spring) and more rapid declines in the prices of investment goods such as computers. The GDP price index rose at an annual rate of 1-1/4 percent in the first quarter and was up almost 1-1/2 percent relative to the first quarter of last year. The GDP price index decelerated somewhat less than the index for gross domestic purchases, in part because declining oil prices receive a smaller weight in U.S. production than in U.S. purchases.