NEWS Release - Speech by Chair Janet L. Yellen - At The Executives' Club of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois - March 3, 2017
From Adding Accommodation to Scaling It Back
I am pleased to join you today to discuss the U.S. economy and the Federal Reserve's monetary policy. I strongly believe that my colleagues and I should explain, as clearly as we can, both the reasons for our decisions and the fundamental principles that underlie our strategy.
Today I will review the conduct of monetary policy during the nearly 10 years since the onset of the financial crisis. Although the Federal Reserve's policy strategy for systematically pursuing its congressionally mandated goals of maximum employment and price stability has not changed during this period, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) has made significant tactical adjustments along the way. I will spend most of my time today discussing the rationale for the adjustments the Committee has made since 2014, a year that I see as a turning point, when the FOMC began to transition from providing increasing amounts of accommodation to gradually scaling it back.
The process of scaling back accommodation has so far proceeded at a slower pace than most FOMC participants anticipated in 2014. Both unexpected economic developments and deeper reevaluations of structural trends affecting the U.S. and global economies prompted us to reassess our views on the outlook and associated risks and, consequently, the appropriate stance of monetary policy, both in the near term and the longer run. Looking ahead, we continue to expect the evolution of the economy to warrant further gradual increases in the target range for the federal funds rate. However, given how close we are to meeting our statutory goals, and in the absence of new developments that might materially worsen the economic outlook, the process of scaling back accommodation likely will not be as slow as it was in 2015 and 2016.
I should note that I will discuss the process of scaling back accommodation mostly from the perspective of our interest rate decisions, which my FOMC colleagues and I see as our primary tool for actively adjusting the stance of monetary policy when our actions are not constrained by the zero lower bound on short-term interest rates.1
Assessing the Degree of Monetary Policy Accommodation
In our monetary policy deliberations, the FOMC always faces two fundamental questions: First, how do we assess the current stance of monetary policy? Second, what are the strategic and tactical considerations that underpin our decisions about the appropriate stance of monetary policy going forward? These questions are difficult because the interactions between monetary policy and the economy are complex. Policy affects the economy through many different channels, and, in turn, many factors influence the appropriate course of policy.
Gauging the current stance of monetary policy requires arriving at a judgment of what would constitute a neutral policy stance at a given time. A useful concept in this regard is the neutral "real" federal funds rate, defined as the level of the federal funds rate that, when adjusted for inflation, is neither expansionary nor contractionary when the economy is operating near its potential. In effect, a "neutral" policy stance is one where monetary policy neither has its foot on the brake nor is pressing down on the accelerator. Although the concept of the neutral real federal funds rate is exceptionally useful in assessing policy, it is difficult in practical terms to know with precision where that rate stands. As a result, and as I described in a recent speech, my colleagues and I consider a wide range of information when assessing that rate.2 As I will discuss, our assessments of the neutral rate have significantly shifted down over the past few years.
In the Committee's most recent projections last December, most FOMC participants assessed the longer-run value of the neutral real federal funds rate to be in the vicinity of 1 percent.3 This level is quite low by historical standards, reflecting, in part, slow productivity growth and an aging population not only in the United States, but also in many advanced economies. Moreover, the current value of the neutral real federal funds rate appears to be even lower than this longer-run value because of several additional headwinds to the U.S. economy in the aftermath of the financial crisis, such as subdued economic growth abroad and perhaps a lingering sense of caution on the part of households and businesses in the wake of the trauma of the Great Recession.
It is difficult to say just how low the current neutral rate is because assessments of the effect of post-recession headwinds on the current level of the neutral real rate are subject to a great deal of uncertainty. Some recent estimates of the current value of the neutral real federal funds rate stand close to zero percent.4 With the actual value of the real federal funds rate currently near minus 1 percent, a near-zero estimate of the neutral real rate means that the stance of monetary policy remains moderately accommodative, an assessment that is consistent with the fact that employment has been growing at a pace--around 180,000 net new jobs per month--that is notably above the level estimated to be consistent with the longer-run trend in labor force growth--between 75,000 and 125,000 per month.5 As I will explain, this policy stance seems appropriate given that the underlying trend in inflation appears to be still running somewhat below 2 percent. But as that gap closes, with labor market conditions now in the vicinity of our maximum employment objective, the Committee considers it appropriate to move toward a neutral policy stance.
My colleagues and I generally anticipate that the neutral real federal funds rate will rise to its longer-run level over the next few years. This expectation partly underlies our view that gradual increases in the federal funds rate will likely be appropriate in the months and years ahead: Those increases would keep the economy from significantly overheating, thereby sustaining the expansion and maintaining price stability.
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