Policy rules that he presents show 5%-7% restrictive rates, tightening has had limited effect on inflation so far, he says.
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard urged policymakers to raise interest rates
further, saying the level will need to be higher to meet the central bank’s goal to be “sufficiently restrictive” to bring
down inflation.
“Even under these generous assumptions, the policy rate is not yet in a zone that may be considered sufficiently
restrictive,” Bullard said Thursday in Louisville, Kentucky at an event hosted by Greater Louisville Inc. “To attain a
sufficiently restrictive level, the policy rate will need to be increased further.”
Bullard presented charts showing a sufficiently restrictive rate might be between about 5% and 7%, though he didn’t spell out in his prepared remarks what rate level he favored. The calculation used different versions of a Taylor Rule, a popular monetary policy guideline developed by Stanford University’s John Taylor. That compares with the current 3.75% to 4% target level of the Fed’s benchmark rate, which it reached earlier this month. The St. Louis Fed leader, who has been among the more hawkish of policy makers this year, was the latest central banker to call for additional action.
The Fed raised rates by 75 basis points on Nov. 2 for the fourth straight time as part of its most aggressive tightening since the 1980s to curb an inflation rate at a four-decade high.
