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Tag Archives: Federal Open Market Commitee
Fed “Fan Charts”
I recently wrote that USA had now entered the club of inflation targeting banks. This occurred when the Federal Reserve in April last year officially started mentioning an explicit inflation target, and also introduced press conferences after its policy meetings. Thereby, central criteria for being considered an inflation targeter were met. Following its January 25 meeting, the Fed initiated immediate publication of projections for the paths for main macroeconomic indicators (they have been available at least since October 2007 in slightly different style, but then along with the minutes of meetings which are published three weeks after the policy decision). The projections are presented along with “confidence bands,” in a … Continue reading
At the Fed: What did come next?
September 22 the Federal Reserve initiated “Operation Twist” where they announced that they would start restructuring its debt by buying up long bonds with the proceedings from short bond sales, with the aim of lowering the long-term yields. As I mentioned in my post on that occasion, the Fed and Ben Bernanke had then exhausted the three main ways of conducting unconventional monetary policy as defined by Bernanke himself in a paper from 2004: I. Shaping Interest-Rate Expectations; II. Altering the Composition of the Central Bank’s Balance Sheet; III. Expanding the Size of the Central Bank’s Balance Sheet. In case nothing new would happen to the American economy, the obvious … Continue reading
Posted in Economics, Macroeconomics, Monetary policy
Tagged Ben Bernanke, Charles L. Evans, Federal Open Market Commitee, Nominal GDP target, Paul Krugman, Unconventional monetary policy, United States
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Come on Baby, Let’s Do the Twist!
After yesterday’s press release by the Fed, many commentators started talking about “Operation Twist” even though no such thing is mentioned in the release. Accompanying the press release on the Federal Reserve site, was, however, a document containing the term in parenthesis. Some could immediately be confused or even scared by this. Would this be yet an addition to the endless series of acronyms that has emerged during the financial crisis? Troubled and Worthless Interest-bearing Securities Task-force? Luckily not. It just reflects a return to the old days. And “twist” actually means what it says: “twist.” In 1961, the Kennedy administration and the Fed engaged in an operation of selling … Continue reading
Posted in Economics, Economists, Monetary policy
Tagged Ben Bernanke, Federal funds rate, Federal Open Market Commitee, Operation Twist, Quantitative easing, Vincent R. Reinhart, Yield curve
Comments Off on Come on Baby, Let’s Do the Twist!
Commitment in action: Federal Reserve’s interest-rate “path”
It is a big shame that today’s FOMC meeting is one of those not to be followed by a press conference and a Q&A with Ben Bernanke. The policy decision is one of the more spectacular in recent times. Not because the Fed decided to keep the target for the Federal Funds Rate within the 0–0.25% range, where it has been since December 2008. The big news, however, is that the non-move is accompanied by an explicit commitment to keep it there for the next two years (if current conditions continue). This is very specific compared to previous talk about keeping rates low for “an extended period” (which has been … Continue reading
