Yellen Provides Much Needed Rate Hike Guidance
Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen gave a speech yesterday evening at The University of Massachusetts, Amherst. It was long enough to cause the Chair to falter and seek medical attention from onsite EMTs (she’s fine), so below are some of the noteworthy highlights carefully selected so you don’t have to risk reading the speech yourself. Bottom line, the Chair did an excellent job clarifying the Fed’s policy position.
“Given that inflation has been running below the FOMC’s objective for several years now, such concerns reinforce the appropriateness of the Federal Reserve’s current monetary policy, which remains highly accommodative by historical standards and is directed toward helping return inflation to 2 percent over the medium term.”
“This framework suggests, first, that much of the recent shortfall of inflation from our 2 percent objective is attributable to special factors whose effects are likely to prove transitory.”
“…falling consumer energy prices explain about half of this year’s shortfall and a sizable portion of the 2013 and 2014 shortfalls as well. Another important source of downward pressure this year has been a decline in import prices…is largely attributable to the 15 percent appreciation in the dollar’s exchange value over the past year.”
“I think its basic message–that the current near-zero rate of inflation can mostly be attributed to the temporary effects of falling prices for energy and non-energy imports–is quite plausible. If so, the 12-month change in total PCE prices is likely to rebound to 1-1/2 percent or higher in 2016, barring a further substantial drop in crude oil prices and provided that the dollar does not appreciate noticeably further.”
“participants implicitly expect that the various headwinds to economic growth that I mentioned earlier will continue to fade, thereby boosting the economy’s underlying strength.”
“most of my colleagues and I anticipate that it will likely be appropriate to raise the target range for the federal funds rate sometime later this year and to continue boosting short-term rates at a gradual pace thereafter as the labor market improves further and inflation moves back to our 2 percent objective.”
“By itself, the precise timing of the first increase in our target for the federal funds rate should have only minor implications for financial conditions and the general economy. What matters for overall financial conditions is the entire trajectory of short-term interest rates that is anticipated by markets and the public. As I noted, most of my colleagues and I anticipate that economic conditions are likely to warrant raising short-term interest rates at a quite gradual pace over the next few years.”
“recent global economic and financial developments highlight the risk that a slowdown in foreign growth might restrain U.S. economic activity somewhat further.”
“Given the highly uncertain nature of the outlook, one might ask: Why not hold off raising the federal funds rate until the economy has reached full employment and inflation is actually back at 2 percent? The difficulty with this strategy is that monetary policy affects real activity and inflation with a substantial lag. If the FOMC were to delay the start of the policy normalization process for too long, we would likely end up having to tighten policy relatively abruptly to keep the economy from significantly overshooting both of our goals. Such an abrupt tightening would risk disrupting financial markets and perhaps even inadvertently push the economy into recession.”
“I expect that inflation will return to 2 percent over the next few years as the temporary factors that are currently weighing on inflation wane, provided that economic growth continues to be strong enough to complete the return to maximum employment and long-run inflation expectations remain well anchored. Most FOMC participants, including myself, currently anticipate that achieving these conditions will likely entail an initial increase in the federal funds rate later this year, followed by a gradual pace of tightening thereafter. But if the economy surprises us, our judgments about appropriate monetary policy will change.“
