Fed considera cambios en su comunicación

Genevieve Signoret & Patrick Signoret

La minuta de la Fed contuvo detalles sobre la discusión del FOMC entorno a su orientación a futuro y al ritmo de compras mensuales de activos de largo plazo. Dylan Matthews (en Wonkblog) ve señales de que la Fed anunciará umbrales o reglas específicas para decidir hasta cuándo continuar sus compras de activos. Eso llevaría a la Fed un paso más cerca de un régimen de objetivos de PIB nominal (NGDP targeting). Barclays piensa que la Fed seguirá comprando activos al ritmo actual de $85 MMn mensuales más allá de diciembre.

Dylan Matthews (en Wonkblog) ve señales de que, en los próximos meses, la Fed anunciará umbrales o reglas específicas para decidir hasta cuándo continuar sus compras de activos. Eso llevaría a la Fed un paso más cerca de un régimen de objetivos de PIB nominal (NGDP targeting).

Some, like Columbia’s Michael Woodford, have criticized the Fed for not tying policy to an explicit measure of economic health, such as the level of nominal GDP or the unemployment rate. The minutes suggest these critics have allies within the Fed: “Many participants thought that more-effective forward guidance could be provided by specifying numerical thresholds for labor market and inflation indicators that would be consistent with maintaining the federal funds rate at exceptionally low levels.”

They argued this would provide greater clarity about the Fed’s future actions. These members likely included Chicago Fed president Charles Evans, who has argued that the Fed should keep rates low until unemployment is below 7 percent or inflation is above 3, and Minneapolis Fed president Narayana Kocherlakota, who has proposed targets of 5.5 percent and 2.25 percent, respectively.

But the members couldn’t agree on what those targets should be, and “some were reluctant to specify explicit numerical thresholds out of concern that such thresholds would necessarily be too simple to fully capture the complexities of the economy and the policy process.” They concluded by agreeing that thresholds were useful, but that “further work would be needed” to flesh out exactly which to use. So look out for a rule like Evans’ or Kocherlakota’s at the next Fed meeting.

Este es el pasaje de la minuta que le llamó la atención a Dylan Matthews:

A number of participants questioned the effectiveness of continuing to use a calendar date to provide forward guidance, noting that a change in the calendar date might be interpreted pessimistically as a downgrade of the Committee’s economic outlook rather than as conveying the Committee’s determination to support the economic recovery. […] Many participants indicated a preference for replacing the calendar date with language describing the economic factors that the Committee would consider in deciding to raise its target for the federal funds rate. […] Many participants thought that more-effective forward guidance could be provided by specifying numerical thresholds for labor market and inflation indicators that would be consistent with maintaining the federal funds rate at exceptionally low levels. However, reaching agreement on specific thresholds could be challenging given the diversity of participants’ views, and some were reluctant to specify explicit numerical thresholds out of concern that such thresholds would necessarily be too simple to fully capture the complexities of the economy and the policy process or could be incorrectly interpreted as triggers prompting an automatic policy response. In addition, numerical thresholds could be confused with the Committee’s longer-term objectives, and so undermine the Committee’s credibility. At the conclusion of the discussion, most participants agreed that the use of numerical thresholds could be useful to provide more clarity about the conditionality of the forward guidance but thought that further work would be needed to address the related communications challenges.

Barclays piensa que la Fed seguirá comprando activos al ritmo actual de $85 MMn mensuales más allá de diciembre:

[The first takeaway] pertains to the likelihood that the FOMC continues purchases of long-term securities at the rate of $85bn per month past the conclusion of the maturity extension program at year-end. The minutes, like the statement and subsequent FOMC communications, is fairly clear in this regard. The minutes say that the decision taken in September “will increase the Committees holdings of long-term securities by about $85bn per month through the end of the year.” The $85bn number is important since it refers to both the amount of long-term Treasuries the committee is buying under the maturity extension program ($45bn per month) plus the amount of new agency MBS purchases ($40bn per month). The minutes then say that the committee “would closely monitor incoming information” and “if the outlook for the labor market did not improve substantially,” then “it would continue its purchases of agency MBS, undertake additional asset purchases, and employ other policy tools as appropriate.” We see this as a fairly clear signal that the committee will likely continue purchases at a rate of $85bn per month into 2013, and we see this announcement coming at the December FOMC meeting.

(Barclays, “September FOMC minutes: Efforts to enhance forward guidance remain a priority”, 4 octubre 2012.)