Federal Reserve Economic Data

During the COVID-19 pandemic, supply chains and shipping costs were major concerns for policymakers and the general public. Both maritime and air freight suffered: Backlogs at ports made unloading cargo more costly and less efficient, and the slowdown of passenger air travel reduced the number of planes with available cargo space. The price of shipping goods increased, but which method became relatively more expensive?

The FRED graph above tracks two producer price indexes, one for deep sea freight and one for air transportation, as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. These two price indexes are both graphed so that January 2020, right before the pandemic, is equal to 100. We also deflate the price indexes using the personal consumption expenditures chain-type price index so that the graph displays the growth in the real (inflation-adjusted) price of shipping, relative to January 2020.

Once the pandemic hit in March 2020, both indexes fell sharply. In the beginning of 2021, both indexes began to climb, with deep sea freight rising above air transportation. While the price of air freight has returned to pre-pandemic levels, the price of sea freight remains elevated.

How this graph was created: Search for “Air Transportation” in FRED and select “Producer Price Index by Industry: Air Transportation.” From the orange “Edit Graph” panel on the right, use the “Add Line” tab to search for “Deep Sea” and select “Producer Price Index by Industry: Deep Sea Freight Transportation” and select the data series. Under the “Edit Line 2” tab, change the unit to “Index (Scale value to 100 for chosen date)” using “2020-01-01” as the date that equals 100. Then select “Copy to all” to copy these units to all lines. In the “Customize data” section, add the Personal Consumption Expenditures: Chain-type Price Index by searching for PCE. In the formula bar in the “Customize data” section, the formula is (a/b)*100. Repeat the customize data steps for line 1 as well. Finally, change the beginning date of the graph to 2000-01-01.

Suggested by Maggie Isaacson and Hannah Rubinton.

Inflation is a concern for many these days, so the FRED Blog looks at what we know and can show about this economic phenomenon. Inflation has complex roots and is treated with policies that have effects with notoriously long and variable lags. The complexity lies in the fact that inflation can have many different causes. This current bout of inflation has been attributed to excess aggregate demand due to pandemic payouts to households, low interest rates, increasing public deficits, supply chain issues, the invasion of Ukraine, and more.

None of these causes is unique to a particular country, and all seem to apply to a wide range of industrialized countries. So, it should be no surprise that the FRED graph above depicts a similar pattern for inflation across the 7 industrialized countries selected. (We cheated a little by excluding Japan, which has had very low inflation, if not deflation, for much of the period.)

This similarity makes monetary policy a bit more difficult: If there is so much co-movement, is it because all economies face the same inflationary shocks or is it because inflation is being imported and exported across countries?

We can answer such questions only in hindsight, but we can look with more detail at the past five years and how inflation has risen. Our second FRED graph shows that the U.S. was clearly the first to experience higher inflation and also has been the first to see it abating a bit. Does this mean that inflation started in the U.S. and then was exported elsewhere? That certainly cannot be the whole story, because inflation did not happen ex nihilo: As mentioned above, there are many common reasons for rising inflation. And inflation clearly doesn’t have only a monetary origin: Note the stark differences within the euro area, which all falls under the monetary policy of the ECB: Yet, France runs at least 2% below the others and more than 4% below Spain. There is simply no simple story to inflation.

How these graphs were created: Search FRED for US CPI, specifically the OECD series in growth rates, as we want to use the same source for all series. Click “Edit Graph,” open the “Add Line” tab, and successively add the other series. You have the first graph. For the second, take the first and restrict the sample period to the past five years.

Suggested by Christian Zimmermann.

Serving poultry at the global Thanksgiving dinner table is 20% more expensive than a year ago. Global food prices in general peaked in the middle of 2022. They’re coming down now, but they’re still 3% higher than they were a year ago.

The FRED graph above shows data on the global price of poultry (blue line) and food in general (red line). Notice that the source of the data, the International Monetary Fund, serves up each data series in a different unit: U.S. cents per pound of poultry and an index with a value of 100 in 2016 for the price of food overall.

Because poultry prices are nested in the broad category of food prices, it should come as little surprise that both price series took flight at the same time in the late part of 2020. However, the global prices of other types of food, such as shrimp, are now lower than a year ago and are contributing to the decline of the composite food price index.

That composition effect is at play at the Thanksgiving dinner table for an average urban consumer in the U.S. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, those serving poultry alongside meats, fish, and eggs are paying 8% more than last year.

Lastly, if you care for tofurkey, notice that although the global price of soybeans has risen alongside the price of poultry, a soybean-based dinner with the same amount of calories provided by turkey is 41% cheaper.

How this graph was created: In FRED, search for and select “Global price of Poultry.” Click “Edit Graph” at the top right corner and navigate to the “Add Line” tab. Search for “Global price of Food index” and click “Add data series.” Gobble, gobble.

Suggested by Diego Mendez-Carbajo.