【英文】美联储理事会报告：美国2022年上半年货币政策报告全文（75页）

Because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, oil  prices rose sharply in early March, reaching  eight-year highs (fgure 3). Prices remain  elevated and volatile, boosted by a European  Union embargo of Russian oil imports  but weighed down at times by concerns  about global economic growth. In addition,  producers in other countries are struggling to  ramp up oil production. Nonfuel commodity prices also surged after  the invasion, with large increases in the  prices of both agricultural commodities and  industrial metals (fgure 4). Although the price  of industrial metals has declined recently,  agricultural prices remain elevated. Ukraine  and Russia are notable exporters of wheat,  Russia is a major exporter of fertilizer, and  higher energy prices are spilling over into the  agricultural sector. Export restrictions and  unfavorable weather conditions in several  countries have also boosted agricultural prices.  (See the box “Developments in Global Supply  Chains.”) With commodity prices surging and foreign  goods prices on the rise, import prices  increased signifcantly (fgure 5).

That said, monthly core infation readings  have softened noticeably since the start of the  year, with the three-month measure of core  PCE infation falling from an annual rate of  6.0 percent last December to 4.0 percent in  April. In particular, infation stepped down for  durable goods, likely refecting some easing in  supply constraints. Nevertheless, the recent infation readings have  been mixed, remain far above levels consistent  with price stability, and are far from conclusive  evidence on the direction of infation. Unlike  durable goods price infation, core services  infation has not declined signifcantly.  Housing service prices continue to rise at a  brisk pace, and increased demand for travel is  markedly pushing up infation rates for lodging  and airfares. More generally, rapid growth of  labor costs is putting upward pressure on the  prices of all labor-intensive services. Measures of near-term infation  expectations continued to rise markedly,  while longer-term expectations moved up  by less The frst half of 2022 saw further increases in  expectations of infation for the year ahead in  surveys of both consumers and professional  forecasters (fgure 6).