Yellen about Explicit Fed Targets
Janet Yellen, the vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, is the latest in a string of Fed bigwigs to get behind an idea of using explicit inflation and unemployment targets to inform the market about the Fed’s future plans – forward guidance, in Fed-speak. During a speech to the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkley, Yellen endorsed the idea of moving beyond calendar-date approximations as the means of conveying information on the Fed’s future moves. Now, she stopped short of actually naming any sort of numbers, but this seems like a good direction for the Fed to move. Ms. Yellen knows what she’s talking about too; in 2010, Fed chairman Ben Bernanke appointed her the chair of a new FOMC communications subcommittee. Not to mention that if Bernanke decides not to accept a third term at the head of the Fed, Ms. Yellen is widely seen as first in line as his replacement.
