- It's been a veritable feast of Fed speak over the past few days, with hawks and doves staking out their views.
- The hawkish Charles Plosser of Philadelphia, who has a FOMC vote this year, wants the Fed to speed up tapering. He also expressed skepticism about using mathematical models to forecast when metrics such as unemployment and GDP growth will return to more normal levels. It's an approach that Janet Yellen has championed.
- In contrast to Plosser, the dovish Eric Rosengren, who dissented against tapering but doesn't have a vote on the FOMC in 2014, has warned that withdrawing QE too quickly could harm employment.
- New York's William Dudley said Fed economists need to better understand the effect of bond-buying on the markets and the economy. "Is it the effect of the purchases on the portfolios of private investors, or alternatively is the major channel one of signaling?" Dudley said. So it's good that the Fed knew what it was doing when it started QE in the first place.
- Meanwhile, Minneapolis' Narayana Kocherlakota believes that the Fed's diverse structure is valuable for policymaking.
- See Bernanke: Taper and rate hikes two very different things