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Greenspan: inflation quiet
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March 9, 1999: 12:54 p.m. ET
Fed chairman tells conference there are no 'obvious signs' of price pressures
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WASHINGTON (CNNfn) - Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said Tuesday there are "no obvious signs of emerging inflation pressures," allowing the U.S. economic expansion to continue into a ninth year.
Greenspan, in a speech to an Arlington, Va., conference on business access to capital and credit, said that low expectations of inflation have "helped to lower risk premiums on debt and have contributed importantly to the favorable investment environment."
The Fed chairman focused his prepared remarks on the environment for entrepreneurs, saying levels of optimism have been high in recent years.
In fact, Greenspan said, the biggest complaint is one that reflects the expanding economy: filling jobs with qualified workers amid a tight labor market.
"For the vast majority of small businesses, access to credit has not been a top concern in this expansion," Greenspan said. He said access has been bolstered by the fact that this expansion has been funded primarily through equity financing rather than through debt.
Greenspan credited the rapid development of computer and telecommunications technologies with significantly increasing productivity during the expansion. His comments came hours after the Labor Department reported that nonfarm productivity in the fourth quarter was up 4.6 percent, the biggest increase in six years.
One area that concerns Greenspan is possible discrimination in lending practices to minorities and women seeking to start a business. "To the extent that market participants discriminate -- consciously or, more likely, unconsciously -- credit does not flow to its most profitable uses and the distribution of output is distorted," the Fed chairman said. 
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Federal Reserve Board
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