Stevenson discusses interest rate effects on labor market

March 7, 2023 Bloomberg

Betsey Stevenson, Bloomberg: "I think it's really hard to interpret the impact of the interest rate increases on the labor market. And the reason is that we would have to know the counterfactual—what would have happened in the labor market if we wouldn't hadn't had those interest rate increases? Normally. what we think should happen is if the Fed thinks that the economy is overheating, we simply are producing as much as we possibly can, there aren't more workers to hire, there aren't more ways to expand, that's causing inflationary pressure. What they want to do is cool demand."