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The US Federal Reserve has emphasized that its monetary policy will be determined by what economic indicators show. But that means that the Fed is likely to raise the federal funds rate more rapidly and to a higher level than its recent statements imply.
In 2017, Chinese President Xi Jinping declared that by the time the People’s Republic celebrates its centenary in 2049, it should be a “great modern socialist country” with an advanced economy. But following through with planned measures to tighten mainland China's grip on Hong Kong would make achieving that goal all but impossible.
CAMBRIDGE – The US Federal Reserve has emphasized that its monetary policy will be determined by what economic indicators show. But it would require some extremely unlikely data to change the Fed’s implicit plan to end its purchases of long-term assets (so-called quantitative easing) in October 2014 and to start raising the federal funds rate from its current near-zero level sometime in the first half of 2015.
The financial markets are obsessed with anticipating whether rates will rise in March or June. Although my own best guess is that the Fed will start to raise rates in March, the starting date is less important than the pace of the rate increase and where the rate will be by the end of 2015.
There is a substantial range of views among the members of the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee. The midpoint of the opinions recorded at most recent FOMC meeting implies a federal funds rate of 1.25-1.5% at the end of 2015. Even by the end of 2016, the midpoint of the range is less than 3%.
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