rate easing

In September I wrote that I expected the Fed to establish a lower bound for inflation threshold as one of its next moves. The rationale was two-fold. First, inflation is undershooting and the Fed needs policy space to deal with unwanted…

Earlier today, I indicated that comments by Fed President Dennis Lockhart clearly indicated that the Fed was poised to shift away from quantitative easing and toward forward guidance to guide future Fed monetary policy. But Lockhart gave a…

Comments by top Federal Reserve officials support the idea that the Fed is going to move away from quantitative easing as a policy tool and lean more heavily on forward guidance. There are a number of reasons for this, not the least of…

Recently, I wrote a series of posts predicting that the Fed would give up on QE and move toward forward guidance in order to be able to normalize policy. Nevertheless, I have also been saying for quite some time I believe the US zero rate…

I believe policy makers at the the Federal Reserve have soured on the marginal effectiveness of quantitative easing as a primary tool for monetary policy. As interest rate policy is still not effective with the policy rate at zero, forward…

So imagine you are a moderate FOMC member. This is the economic situation you face and the trade-offs in terms of policy tools.

The Federal Open Market Committee has used various forms of forward guidance to influence the views of businesses, investors and households about where monetary policy is likely to be headed. This column by the President of the San…

Last week in the lead up to the FOMC meeting, I went through why I believed this meeting would mark a shift away from the QE regime. And while the Fed did not taper, indeed we are seeing a greater emphasis on forward guidance as a policy…

The Federal Reserve meets today and tomorrow to decide on the next step on monetary policy. In my view, this meeting is crucially important because it not only will mark a regime shift away from quantitative easing toward forward guidance,…

By Sober Look Today we saw another confirmation that the UK's placement on the economic cycle curve (see post) in the "recovery acceleration" section is quite reasonable. The KPMG/REC employment report for the UK showed something we haven't…