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Laura Rosner-Warburton

@laurarosner.bsky.social

founding partner @ MacroPolicy Perspectives, macroeconomist, inflation forecaster, Fed watcher, mom of 2 www.macropolicyperspectives.com

Posts Replies Media

Laura Rosner-Warburton @laurarosner.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

I am surprised there were no dissents to the June FOMC statement given the radical changes in language and structure. What were the alternatives considered? Was this their best choice?

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Laura Rosner-Warburton @laurarosner.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

How can BEA be so confident in real time that some changes in prices are noise and some aren't? For CPI legal services, only half of the Jan spike reversed in Mar, which suggests it wasn't all noise. Shouldn't they let data users decide how much signal to take rather than decide for them?

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Laura Rosner-Warburton @laurarosner.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

BEA should re-evaluate their practice of judgmental intervention in light of reduced BLS sampling and heightened vol in the data. Quantitative thresholds for outlier control should be established in advance and communicated to the public....

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Laura Rosner-Warburton @laurarosner.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

The BEA switched to PPI legal services for estimating PCE legal services in Mar like they did in Jan. In Feb they used CPI legal services which is the official source data. The consistency across Jan/Mar is reassuring because it shows they are treating outliers in a symmetric fashion. However...

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Laura Rosner-Warburton @laurarosner.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

The January reset of health insurance premiums captured in the PPI has been sequentially revised up to 4.3% m/m nsa in the latest vintage from 2.2% initially. More upward revisions are still possible. Core inflation at the beginning of 2026 was hotter than first reported.

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Laura Rosner-Warburton @laurarosner.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

If BEA sticks with CPI for legal services in Mar (asymmetric intervention) core PCE inflation % y/y will be biased down by roughly a tenth. If they switch to PPI again in Mar (symmetric intervention), core PCE inflation will still be 0.03pp lower than if they had not intervened at all.

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Laura Rosner-Warburton @laurarosner.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

If BEA is going to engage in selective outlier control, it should be even handed, the methodology should be disclosed in advance and any interventions should be disclosed with the release of the data.

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Laura Rosner-Warburton @laurarosner.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

If the January spike in CPI legal services does not reverse in March or at some point this year, then BEA was wrong to censor it in January and core PCE inflation should be revised higher at the time of the benchmark.

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Laura Rosner-Warburton @laurarosner.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

If March data show a large decline in CPI legal services (confirming the January spike was noise), BEA *should* switch back to the PPI legal services index in March otherwise they will introduce a downward bias to core PCE inflation.

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Laura Rosner-Warburton @laurarosner.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

A lot of CPI components, including legal services, are sampled bimonthly which means noise in a given month sometimes takes two months to reverse.

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Laura Rosner-Warburton @laurarosner.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

The decision to revert back to CPI as the source data for PCE legal services in Feb raises questions and may be problematic in Mar.

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Reposted by Laura Rosner-Warburton

Julia Coronado @jc-econ.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

Troubling development--Core PCE inflation was hot in Jan at 0.36% m/m & 3.1% y/y BUT it would have been even hotter had BEA not shifted its source data in an ad hoc fashion to avoid showing an 11.9% m/m rise in legal fees shown in the CPI. The BEA acknowledged they made this choice...not a good look

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