Prime age labor force participation rate is the standard measure the econobloggers I’ve followed (most notably Krugman and Brad DeLong, who are part of the community also pushing for this interpretation of monetary policy) tend to use to measure economic health, and there are reasons to see it as pointing most closely to what we actually care about (that and hourly productivity, which isn’t in these charts).
That’s fair. FWIW, I don’t follow monetary policy very closely, but I usually see people talking about unemployment, price levels, and the general labor force participation rate in these discussions, not prime age labor force participation rate. The Bank of Japan’s website has a page called “Outline of monetary policy” and it states,
The Bank of Japan, as the central bank of Japan, decides and implements monetary policy with the aim of maintaining price1 stability.
Price stability is important because it provides the foundation for the nation’s economic activity.
The page does not mention prime age labor force participation, or even employment levels.
But regardless, I think I was overconfident here. I think I’ll reword the post slightly.
Prime age labor force participation rate is the standard measure the econobloggers I’ve followed (most notably Krugman and Brad DeLong, who are part of the community also pushing for this interpretation of monetary policy) tend to use to measure economic health, and there are reasons to see it as pointing most closely to what we actually care about (that and hourly productivity, which isn’t in these charts).
That’s fair. FWIW, I don’t follow monetary policy very closely, but I usually see people talking about unemployment, price levels, and the general labor force participation rate in these discussions, not prime age labor force participation rate. The Bank of Japan’s website has a page called “Outline of monetary policy” and it states,
The page does not mention prime age labor force participation, or even employment levels.
But regardless, I think I was overconfident here. I think I’ll reword the post slightly.