Underlying trends suggest that the current bout of high inflation in the United States is likely to be short-lived, San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank researchers said on Monday.

Some Federal Reserve policymakers have sounded alarms over the central bank's super-easy monetary policy, pointing to a recent rise in inflation as evidence of building price pressures. Politicians at home and abroad have blamed the rise in part on the Fed's super-easy monetary policy, which they say has lifted prices of commodities worldwide.

But the absence of wage inflation and the stability of inflation expectations undercut such an interpretation, according to the San Francisco Fed researchers, reprising a view that also has broad currency among Fed policymakers.

Core inflation measures that exclude volatile food and gas prices are better predictors of future inflation than headline measures, the researchers argued.

In the 12 months to end-May, headline inflation by the Fed's favorite measure was 2.5 percent, above the Fed's 2 percent medium-term target for inflation. But core inflation was just 1.2 percent, well under that figure.

"The recent rise in headline inflation following surges in food and energy prices has prompted concerns that high inflation could persist," wrote San Francisco Fed research advisor Zheng Liu and research associate Justin Weidner. "However, sustained high inflation is unlikely as long as inflation expectations remain well anchored."

Federal reserve Inflation