por admin » Mié May 16, 2012 2:02 pm
ECONOMY Updated May 16, 2012, 2:35 p.m. ET
Fed Flags Fiscal Risks
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By KRISTINA PETERSON And JEFFREY SPARSHOTT
Federal Reserve officials in April flagged concerns over U.S. fiscal policy and its impact on the economy, according to minutes of their last policy meeting released Wednesday.
Central bank officials overall thought the economic outlook was still on a path of "moderate" economic growth that would gradually pick up, according to minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee's April 24-25 meeting, released after the customary three-week lag.
While Fed officials have indicated they aren't planning to take any immediate new actions to spur economic growth, "several" officials "indicated that additional monetary policy accommodation could be necessary if the economic recovery lost momentum or the downside risks to the forecast became great enough," the minutes said.
Among the concerns that Fed officials noted last month was the U.S. fiscal situation. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has warned lawmakers about the potential effect of the "fiscal cliff," which includes the Bush-era tax cuts and a payroll-tax break expiring at the end of this year, as well as more than $1 trillion in spending cuts scheduled to kick in at the beginning of 2013.
Fed officials expected that the government sector would be a "drag on economic growth over coming quarters" and saw the U.S. fiscal situation as a "sizable risk." If lawmakers don't reach agreement on a plan for the federal budget, "a sharp fiscal tightening could occur at the start of 2013," the minutes noted. That uncertainty "could lead businesses to defer hiring and investment," officials worried at the meeting. Agreement on a long-term plan could alleviate some of that uncertainty.
Fed officials also debated how much of the weakness in the job market would ease when the economic recovery accelerates.
"Participants expressed a range of views on the extent to which the unemployment rate was being boosted by structural factors such as mismatches between the skills of unemployed workers and those being demanded by hiring firms," the minutes stated.
The officials also explored making changes to the Fed's new communications strategy and agreed to discuss further the advantages and drawbacks of using "simple monetary rules" as "guides for monetary policy decision making" and for external communications about their policy.
In April, the Fed's policy-making body reaffirmed its plan to keep short-term interest rates near zero through late 2014. However, projections released on the same day showed some Fed officials expected the central bank to start raising interest rates earlier than they had in January.
For instance, only four Fed officials now expect the Fed to wait until 2015 for its first-interest rate increase, down from six in January. The minutes noted that views ranged in part because officials had different projections for how the economic recovery would proceed and the pace of the decline in unemployment. Some officials also thought it was appropriate to keep short-term interest rates lower for "a longer period" when the federal-funds rate had been near zero.
All 17 Fed officials make quarterly projections, but only the central bank's board of governors and five regional bank presidents vote on the path of monetary policy at FOMC meetings.
The Fed also decided to change the schedule for the meetings of its policy-making body. The FOMC will now meet over two days, instead of alternating one- and two-day meetings. Quarterly economic projections will be released and Mr. Bernanke will conduct a press conference after the meetings in the third month of each quarter: March, June, September and December.
Some Fed officials had "expressed a preference for the two-day format over the one-day format" and Mr. Bernanke raised the possibility of changing the meeting schedule "to incorporate more two-day meetings to allow additional time for discussion," the minutes noted.
In their assessment of the economy at the April meeting, Fed officials viewed the economy as continuing to "expand moderately." Strains in global financial markets continued to pose a risk. Labor-market conditions showed improvement, although Fed officials noted that unusually warm weather may have inflated employment figures earlier in the year. Most officials thought the inflation outlook was balanced, though "some" officials worried that "maintaining the current highly accommodative stance of monetary policy over the medium run could erode the stability of inflation expectations and risk higher inflation."