Why Has Transparency Been So Damn Confusing?

Jon Faust:

Why has transparency been so damn confusing?: The theme of our recent series of posts on understanding FOMC actions and communications has been the well-disguised, steady predictability of FOMC policy. The basic story is that policy is driven by a consensus on the FOMC. The consensus tends to evolve slowly and predictably, and for some time now, the consensus has behaved consistently as if driven by two principles:

So long as steady job market gains persist, continue a gradual, pre-announced removal of accommodation.

So long as inflation remains below target, take a tactical pause if credible evidence arises that the job gains might soon falter.

The factual record, I argued, is unambiguous: over the last three years, we’ve gotten normalization at a preannounced pace as in to the first principle, punctuated only by brief (so far) tactical pauses as under the second.[1]

But the fact that my low-drama story lines up with the facts doesn’t make it correct. And my story directly contradicts the popular narrative of a skittish, market-obsessed Fed flip-flopping at every opportunity. This is where the well-disguised part comes in.

Before continuing, however, I want to emphasize that I came to the views I’m describing during my years working on transparency and communications on behalf of the chairs Bernanke and Yellen—a job that ended about 2 years ago now. Yes, I did my small part in making the mess. But the FOMC members and Fed staffers like me also worked pretty hard to understand what was going wrong and attempting to improve the situation. This series of posts is essentially the lessons I took from these efforts. It would be inappropriate for me to say who among my former colleagues subscribes to these views, but I similarly don’t want to claim the ideas as my own. For now,[2] I’ll be deliberately and appropriately vague in saying that all the points I’m making were in the air at the Fed while I was there. In this post, I’ll sketch the basics, leaving details and support for subsequent posts. ...