Fed openness is actually very confusing

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Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia President Charles Plosser was answering reporters’ questions two weeks ago when he paused to seek their assistance on the Fed’s campaign to open up to the public.

“Help me out here,” Plosser said after a Jan. 11 speech in Rochester, New York. “There’s a huge confusion about this,” he said, referring to Fed plans to start releasing policy makers’ forecasts for the benchmark interest rate tomorrow.

Plosser said he was concerned investors might misinterpret the projections as a pledge to keep borrowing costs low for a specified period. That could make it harder for the central bank to raise interest rates should the need arise, said Stephen Stanley, chief economist at Pierpont Securities LLC in Stamford, Connecticut.

“It’s not at all clear how people are supposed to react” to the Fed’s new communications policy, Stanley said. “If it does start to take on that sense of being a commitment,” he said, “it runs a great risk in terms of their credibility when they end up not being able to stick to it.”

The Federal Open Market Committee plans to release all 17 policy makers’ rate projections for the fourth quarter of 2012, the next few years and the long run, as well as an explanation for their assessments. The Fed will provide the information at the conclusion of a two-day meeting tomorrow. The FOMC convened today at about 10 a.m.

Views Voiced

The decision to announce the projections is the latest effort by Chairman Ben S. Bernanke to increase openness and public understanding of the Fed. Since becoming chairman in 2006, Bernanke has begun holding regular press conferences and voiced his views in television interviews and at town hall meetings. He’s also announced forecasts on economic growth, unemployment and inflation four times a year, up from twice annually under his predecessor, Alan Greenspan.

Chicago Fed President Charles Evans, who this month reiterated his call for adding more stimulus, said on Jan. 13 that the central bank’s “enhanced communications” mark a “substantial, first-order improvement” over the Fed’s previous efforts. Publishing the projections will help the public better evaluate the committee’s views, while allowing monetary policy to “respond more strongly in the medium-term when adverse economic shocks impede growth and employment,” he said.

Policy makers want to telegraph their expectations for the appropriate path for the overnight lending rate between banks, Plosser said. That shouldn’t be confused as a commitment on the level of interest rates.