Why US inflation is so hard to diagnose

At the Fed, hundreds of economists work to provide analysis of economic conditions. Two economic letters from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco (FRBSF) are an example of how tricky it can be to understand how decisions made by governments, companies, and individuals change the economy. One, published in October 2021, provided an early estimate of how federal stimulus would affect inflation, while a second, published this March, tackled the same question with a different approach.