Analysis: Yellen ignores opposition to delay rate hike
FEDERAL Reserve chair Janet Yellen braved mounting opposition inside and outside the US central bank and delayed an interest-rate increase again to give the economy more room to run.
While agreeing that the case for a rate rise had strengthened, Yellen argued this week that it made sense to put off a move for now amid signs that discouraged Americans who dropped out of the labour market were returning and looking for work.
“The economy has a little more room to run than might have been previously thought,” Yellen said in Washington after the Fed’s two-day meeting, as she explained the decision to keep rates on hold. “That’s good news.”
The decision to stand pat drew dissents from three voting members of the Federal Open Market Committee – the first time that has happened since December 2014.
It also comes on the heels of an accusation by Republican Party presidential nominee Donald Trump that Yellen is deliberately keeping rates low to help make President Barack Obama look good in his final year in office.
When asked about such accusations, Yellen repeatedly disputed that political considerations played any role in Fed decisions. “We do not discuss politics at our meetings and we do not take politics into account in our decisions.”
Labour market
The Fed chair also made clear that the central bank still intended to raise rates this year. “I would expect to see that, if we continue on the current course of labour market improvement and there are no major new risks that develop.”
Scott Anderson, chief economist at Bank of the West in San Francisco, said: “We’re still looking at a very patient FOMC despite the dissents today, and Yellen certainly leads that.”
Not only did the Fed put off a rate increase on Wednesday, it also scaled back the number of hikes it expects next year, from three to two, according to the median forecast of FOMC participants released after the conclusion of the meeting.
Yellen said the differences inside the FOMC mainly came down to the timing of rate increases, not to whether they should be carried out. “We are generally pleased with how the US economy is doing.”
She suggested that much of the discussion centred on which set of risks was greater: overheating the economy by delaying a rate increase now, or taking a chance that inflation will remain below its 2 percent goal by removing monetary accommodation too early.
“We had a rich, deep, serious, intellectual debate about the risks and the forecasts for the economy, and we struggled with trying to understand one another’s points of view.”
She downplayed concerns that the Fed’s easy monetary stance was fueling bubbles in the financial markets and the economy.
“In general, I would not say that asset valuations are out of line with historical norms,” said Yellen
Michael Gapen, chief US economist at Barclays in New York, said Yellen may be too complacent. “Historically the Fed has had problems seeing financial instability in real time.”
Yellen also argued that monetary policy was not exceptionally easy, in spite of the low level of interest rates.
‘We had a deep intellectual debate about the risks and the forecasts for the economy.’
That’s partly because slow productivity growth and an aging workforce have reduced the economy’s potential growth rate and thus its long-run equilibrium interest rate.
“Monetary policy is only modestly accommodative.”
Policy makers on Wednesday lowered their estimate of the economy’s long run cruising speed to 1.8 percent from 2 percent. They also trimmed their calculation of the longrun federal funds rate to 2.9 percent from 3 percent in June.
Former Fed official Jonathan Wright backed Yellen’s decision to give the economy more leash.
“There is little risk and considerable potential benefit from running the labor market somewhat hot for a while” because it could draw more discouraged workers off the sidelines, said Wright, who is now an economics professor at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. – Bloomberg