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Dallas Federal Reserve President Robert Kaplan on Tuesday argued again, in an interview with MarketWatch, for beginning a conversation about tapping the brakes on the Fed’s support for the economy.
Kaplan said he has greater confidence than he had three months ago that the economy is weathering the pandemic and is on track to meet the Fed’s goals of full employment and price stability.
The Fed has been buying $120 billion per month of Treasurys and mortgage-backed securities, and has kept interest rates close to zero, in an effort to support the economy.
In December, the Fed said it would continue asset purchases until the economy reached a benchmark of “sustained further improvement” in meeting its goals of full employment and 2% long-run inflation.
“A lot has changed since December,” Kaplan said, pointing to strong fiscal policy actions.
“I think it will make sense to at least start discussing how we would go about adjusting these purchases and starting having those discussions sooner rather than later,” Kaplan said.
Last week, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said the economy is not close to substantial further progress and the Fed is not thinking about tapering.
In the interview, Kaplan said he thought substantial further progress meant that the economy is “on track” to meet the two goals of employment and inflation and also a sense the economy has weathered the pandemic.
“At least for me, I have better visibility and have more confidence that we can at least see light at the end of the tunnel in terms of reaching that benchmark,” Kaplan said.
The Fed should begin to discuss the benefits of the purchases and the “costs and side effects” which include excesses and imbalances in financial markets and housing markets, he said.
“I do think it’s wise for us to acknowledge that purchases of Treasurys and mortgage backed securities are one of several factors” affecting valuations in financial markets and the housing market.
“There will be a debate of what meets that benchmark and we’ll debate it out,” he said.
Kaplan said he did not know if the Fed would start a conversation about tapering at its next policy meeting in mid-June. He said it would be a “group decision.”
On Monday, two Fed officials, New York Fed President John Williams and Richmond Fed President Thomas Barkin said Monday that the economy is improving, it is still not performing well enough to consider any reduction in the bond-buying program.
See: Fed’s Williams says inflation to top 2% for rest of the year but decline after economy is recovered
Barkin told CNBC that, for him, a key metric for the economy was the employment-to-population ratio which has seen only “modest progress” recovering from the depths of the pandemic.
Kaplan said there is a “fog” around labor market participation rates. Some workers have retired, some women are staying at home caring for children and some low paid workers don’t want to return to front-line work at a low wage. These reluctant workers are currently getting unemployment benefits and have the ability to be patient, Kaplan said.
“All these factors are frictions in the labor market. They’re not indicative of lack of availability of jobs,” Kaplan said.
“I think it’s going to take a while for the fog to clear on the participation rate,” Kaplan said.
On Monday, in comments echoing Powell, New York Fed President Williams said he expects inflation to “run above” the Fed’s 2% target this year but that inflation will subside next year.
In the interview Kaplan said he was unsure how inflation would perform in 2022.
He said his business contacts are no longer sure that the supply-demand bottlenecks leading to higher prices would be resolved this year.
“A number of them are a little less sure now. The time frame is getting pushed back,” he said.
Businesses are struggling to meet strong demand, he said.
“One of them said it is like trying to walk up a down-escalator,” Kaplan said.
Based on his overall assessment of the economy, Kaplan believes the Fed will lift interest rates off zero sometime in 2022.
By then, he thinks the economy will meet the Fed’s new framework’s three goals of full employment, inflation running at 2% and evidence inflation will run moderately above 2% for some time.
“Based on my forecast, that will happen in 2022,” he said, adding, “we have time to judge that and see how the economy evolves.”
Most Fed officials don’t see an interest rate hike until after 2023.
Kaplan said he supports the Fed’s new framework and that it makes sense for the Fed to be less preemptive than it has been in the past.
However, he noted the Fed could remain “highly accommodative” without keeping rates pegged at zero.
“There will be a point, as we go through the next few years, where we should be highly accommodative but that could mean the fed funds rate above zero,” he said.
He noted that the so-called neutral rate of interest in the economy – where rates are neither supporting or depressing growth – will move higher given forecasts of a strong U.S. economy. If the Fed doesn’t move rates up in tandem, it will be more accommodative.
But Kaplan didn’t think the Fed’s new framework was holding the Fed hostage, as Mohamed El-Erian argued in an op-ed in the Financial Times.
“I support the framework. We’ll have disagreements on implementation,” he said.
Stocks were sharply lower on Tuesday with the S&P 500
SPX,
index down over 1%.
