Fed ‘has room for more rate rises this year’
Reserve Bank of Atlanta president is optimistic about the outlook for at least the medium term
The Federal Reserve has room for two more rate increases this year, as the economy seems “reasonably close” to full employment and is likely to gather pace, former Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta President Dennis Lockhart said.
“The committee is pretty solidly optimistic about the outlook for at least the medium term, and that would be the continuation of a moderate pace of growth,” Lockhart said in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s Yvonne Man in Hong Kong on Monday. “It’s appropriate to begin to remove a little bit of the ultra-accommodation.”
The Fed on March 15 raised its target for the benchmark federal funds rate by a quarter point to 0.75 per cent to 1 per cent and released quarterly forecasts showing that officials expect to hike twice more this year, according to their median estimate. Speaking at the sidelines of the Credit Suisse Asian Investment Conference in Hong Kong, Lockhart said the Fed is not behind the curve, and he would have supported the rate increase earlier this month. With the unemployment rate at 4.7 per cent, the economy is “reasonably close” to full employment, he said.
Still, policymakers would most probably refrain from aggressive tightening with US interest rates likely to be low by historical standards for some time, he said. While there are indications that US first-quarter economic growth may be “quite low” at about 1 per cent, the pattern of recent years may be repeated with accelerated expansion seen in the second quarter and later in the year, said Lockhart, who retired at the end of February.