In the blog “Inflation Targeting” Taggert discusses the February meeting of the Federal Reserve Board. The main point of the blog is about the Committee formulating a numerical definition of the price-stability objective of monetary policy. Costs and benefits of introducing such a definition were weighed. It was unanimous that price stability provides the situation for maximizing sustainable economic expansion in the long-run, but views differed on the need to specify a numerical definition for the Reserve’s price-stability objective. Some felt that it would be useful as an anchor for long-term inflation expectations. Several felt the definition would be inconsistent with the Committee’s twofold mandate of promoting maximum employment as and price stability. When all was said and done no conclusion was reached and the Committee decided to postpone any final decision.
Apparently the utility of the meeting exceeded the utility of other important business they were faced with, this even though they could come to no decision whatsoever. If they would have done a cost-benefit-analysis they would have realized the meeting was useless.
1 comment:
Not really a ManEc topic. Anyway ...
LOL.
They get paid to have meetings, and are required by law to have them and to (ultimately) report what they did.
There has actually been a movement among monetarist economists for some time to eliminate the Federal Reserve (and all its meetings) and replace them with a simple rule along the lines of currency in circulation will grow by 5% per year. This was proposed because some believe that the F.R. does more harm than good.
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