Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President Narayana Kocherlakota said the U.S. central bank would have been totally justified if it had increased policy stimulus to combat low inflation when it met last month, adding that negative interest rates could be a useful policy tool.
Speaking in an interview Sept. 29 with Arthur Levitt on Bloomberg Radio, the Feds most outspoken policy dove declined to say if he had recommended negative interest rates in projections submitted for the Sept. 16-17 meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee. He did say, however, that more aggressive Fed policy was warranted than the current setting of near-zero rates.
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Given the inflation outlook, given how low inflation is expected to be, to ensure the credibility of our inflation target, taking a more accommodative stance in September would have been totally justified, Kocherlakota said in the interview, broadcast Saturday. He steps down from the Fed on Dec. 31 and is not a voting member of the FOMC this year.
The FOMC decided last month to hold rates near zero, though Chair Janet Yellen said Sept. 24 that she expected that the central banks first rate increase since 2006 would be warranted later this year. Kocherlakota has repeatedly argued for a delay in rate liftoff.
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Accommodation TimeMy main point -- this is a time to think about adding accommodation, not a time to be thinking about taking it away, he said.
Policy makers submit quarterly economic forecasts including their projections for the appropriate future path of the federal funds rate, which has been held near zero since December 2008. Displayed as dots on a chart, forecasts on the so-called dot-plot released Sept. 17 showed that one official viewed the appropriate rate at the end of this year and next to be slightly less than zero.
Kocherlakota said he was prevented by the Feds rules of confidentially from disclosing if this was his dot, though he expressed interest in the decision of central banks in Sweden and Switzerland to drive rates below zero.
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I think its another useful tool in our toolkit that we should be surely thinking about, he said, in response to the question of whether the Fed should consider doing likewise if officials decided there was a need to stimulate the economy more aggressively.
Its been very interesting what the European central banks have been able to do in terms of actually provide more stimulus than I would have expected, by driving interest rates below what economists used to call the zero lower bound, Kocherlakota said.
Yellen was asked about the negative dot in the Feds Summary of Economic Projections during a post-FOMC press conference on Sept. 17. She said negative interest rates was not something that we considered very seriously at all today.
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Narayana Kocherlakota said the U.S. central bank would have been totally justified if it had increased policy stimulus to combat low inflation when
Kocherlakota Says Low Inflation Warrants Further Fed Stimulus
Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President Narayana Kocherlakota said the U.S. central bank would have been "totally justified" if it had increased policy stimulus
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Kocherlakota Says Low Inflation Warrants Further Fed Stimulus
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