Statement by Alan Greenspan, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, before the subcommittee on Domestic and International Monetary Policy, Committee on Banking and Financial Services, U.S. House of Representatives, July 19, 1995 - Statements to the Congress

Federal Reserve Bulletin, Sept, 1995

I am pleased to appear today to present the Federal Reserve's semiannual report on monetary policy. In February, when I was last here for this purpose, I reported that die U.S. economy had turned in a remarkable performance in 1994. Growth had been quite rapid, reaching a torrid pace by the final quarter of die year, when real gross domestic product rose at a 5 percent annual rate and final sales increased at a 5 3/4 percent rate. Inflation had remained subdued through year-end, although productive resources were stretched: The unemployment rate had fallen to its lowest level in years, while manufacturing capacity utilization had been pushed up to a historically high level.

As I indicated in February, a slowing of economic growth to a more sustainable pace, with resource use settling in around its long-run potential, was required to avoid inflationary instabilities and the adverse consequences for economic activity that would invariably follow. After having posted three straight years of consumer price increases of less than 3 percent for the first time in decades, inflation seemed poised to move upward. Reflecting market pressures, prices of raw materials and intermediate goods had already risen considerably, and a surge in die prices of a variety of imported goods coufd be expected to follow the weakening in the dollar through early 1995.

Monetary policy tightenings over the previous year had been designed to foster the type of moderation in final demand that would help damp inflation pressures going forward and sustain the economic expansion. When we began the policy-tightening process, we knew the previous drags on the economy stemming from balance sheet stresses and restraints on lending were largely behind us. But that still did not make it a simple matter to gauge just what degree of firming in reserve market conditions would be necessary to produce a financial environment consistent with sustainable economic growth. In the event, the federal funds rate was raised to 6 percent, as the surprising strength in the economy and associated pressures on resources required a degree of monetary policy restraint to ensure that inflation would be contained.

Fortunately, we started the tightening process early enough and advanced it far enough that monetary restraint began to bite before some potential problems could assume major proportions. With inadequate monetary restraint, aggregate demand could have significantly overshot the economy's long-run supply potential and created serious inflationary instabilities. Moreover, the perceived capacity constraints and lengthening delivery times that come with an overheated economy could have fostered the development of more serious inventory overaccumulation. In such circumstances, the longer the moderation in output growth is delayed, the larger will be the inventory overhang and the more severe will be the subsequent production correction. As hoped, final sales slowed appreciably in the first quarter of this year, but inventory investment did not match that slowing, and overall inventory-sales ratios increased slightly. Although the aggregate level of inventories remained modest, a few major industries, such as motor vehicles and home goods, found themselves with substantial excesses. Attempts to control inventory levels triggered cutbacks in orders and output that inevitably put a damper on employment and income.

How the ongoing pattern of inventory investment unfolds is a crucial element in the near-term outlook for the economy. Production adjustments could fairly quickly shut off unintended inventory accumulation without a prolonged period of slack output - one that could adversely affect personal incomes and business profitability, which, in turn, could undermine confidence and depress spending plans. Under these conditions, final sales should continue to grow through and beyond the inventory correction, leading to sustained moderate economic expansion. But a less favorable scenario certainly cannot be ruled out. The inventory adjustment could be extended and severe enough to drive down incomes, disrupt final demand, and set in motion a period of weak growth or even a recession.

Useful insights into how an inventory correction is proceeding can often be gained by evaluating developments in industries that supply producers of final durable products with key primary inputs - such as steel, aluminum, and capital equipment components and parts. This is because inventory adjustments are often larger in durable goods and they become magnified at progressively earlier stages in the production process. Typically, when purchasing managers for firms producing durable goods find their inventories at excessive levels, they reduce orders for materials and also for components of capital goods, and as a consequence suppliers shorten promised delivery times and cut back on production. In the current instance, domestic orders for steel and aluminum and for some capital equipment components have weakened but not enough to have had more than modest effects on production. Prices of key inputs also suggest that demand so far is holding up and the inventory correction is contained. The price of steel scrap, for example, has not fallen, and spot prices of non-ferrous metals on average have stabilized recently after considerable weakness in the first part of the year. Though still lethargic, the behavior of markets for durable goods materials and supplies scarcely evidences the type of broader inventory liquidation that has usually been at the forefront of the major inventory recessions of the past.