First, Federal Reserve policy easing in the last five months of last year seemed to be constrained by concerns about inflation. Judging from the longer-term projections included in the minutes of the October 2007 and January 2008 meetings, Federal Reserve policy makers seem to have an informal goal for PCE inflation (excluding food and energy) or something less than 2 percent. Was that goal reining in their response to the weakening of spending in 2007, and will it constrain their actions their actions over the remainder of this year?
Second, policy actions this year suggest that the Federal Reserve has abandoned the practice of gradually responding to economic events that marked the experience of the prior two decades. Will this phase of post-gradualism apply symmetrically later this year if evidence accumulates that inflation expectations are on the rise?
Third, Chairman Bernanke and his predecessors have previously argued that Federal Reserve involvement in the supervision of financial institutions is important in making both the conduct of supervision and monetary policy better. But the past few years apparently witnessed multiple regulatory lapses. Supervisors failed to caution depositories offering potential borrowers unsuitable mortgages. They also acquiesced as complicated structures were booked off the balance sheet, even though, in the event, they were not treated as such by corporate headquarters at the first sign of stress. At the same time, it is hard to read the hesitant easing of late 2007 as evidence that monetary policy makers were receiving useful insights from their supervisory colleagues. Does Chairman Bernanke still view supervision and regulation as an appropriate responsibility of the Federal Reserve?
Related;
Read Rogoff and Reinhart
Challenges for the world’s divided economy
5 Historical Economic Crises and the U.S.
Learning from experience
Third world America
No comments:
Post a Comment