Economix Blog: On Federal Reserve Policy, No More, No Less

A speech on Tuesday by Eric Rosengren, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, underscores that debate within the central bank once again is shifting from whether to do more to when to do less.

This should not suggest that the Fed is on the verge of doing less. It seems clear that a strong majority of the Fed’s policy-making committee supports the current round of stimulus, announced in September and December. The Fed’s chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, said on Monday that the persistence of high unemployment “motivates and justifies” those steps, which he called “extraordinarily important.”

But an account of the committee’s most recent meeting in December, released earlier this month, showed participants already debating whether the Fed should end the bond purchases as early as this summer.

Mr. Rosengren, who holds one of the four rotating seats on the committee this year, pushed back against calls for an early end. The Fed is buying $85 billion a month in Treasuries and mortgage bonds to drive down borrowing costs, which it hopes will encourage spending and foster job creation. Mr. Rosengren said the campaign was working and that it should continue for some time.

“I consider it imperative that monetary policy continue to actively support the economy at present — since we continue to have an unacceptably high unemployment rate while, at the same time, inflation is undershooting the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent target,” Mr. Rosengren said.

But Mr. Rosengren – who has been one of the strongest advocates for the Fed to act more aggressively to reduce unemployment — did not argue that the Fed should expand its efforts, even though he and other Fed officials expect that unemployment will remain higher than they would like, and that inflation will remain lower.

After the speech, in an interview with Bloomberg News, Mr. Rosengren made clear that the Fed could do more – he just doesn’t think it should, at least not for now.

Another strong supporter of the asset purchases, Narayana Kocherlakota, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, did call Tuesday for additional action to reduce unemployment, but his views are less significant because he does not hold a vote on the policy-making committee this year.

“Monetary policy is currently not accommodative enough,” Mr. Kocherlakota said, noting that inflation is projected to remain below the 2 percent annual pace the Fed regards as most healthy, so the central bank is failing both in its obligation to reduce unemployment and to control inflation.

Mr. Kocherlakota said the Fed should announce its intention to keep short-term interest rates near zero until the unemployment rate falls below 5.5 percent, rather than the 6.5 percent threshold the central bank adopted in December.

Article source: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/15/no-more-no-less/?partner=rss&emc=rss