On one hand, there is wide agreement that monetary policy should take greater account of certain monetary phenomena, such as sharp rises in asset prices and credit stock, as well as the pricing of risk. On the other hand, there is concern that monetary policy is being burdened with responsibilities it is unable to bear.
15 To provide some sense of the magnitudes, on average over the past year the unemployment rate for adults of prime working age (25 to 54) was about 1 percentage point higher in nonmetropolitan areas than in larger metro areas. 16 But there is an even greater gap in labor force engagement, as can be seen in figure 5.