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The national economic outlook and monetary policy

The views expressed today are my own and not necessarily those of the Federal Reserve System or the FOMC. Highlights: • President Charles Plosser provides his economic outlook and notes that since there is little evidence that additional asset purchases will improve the economic recovery, the time has come for an expeditious phaseout of the purchase program. • He indicates that the FOMC missed an excellent opportunity to begin this tapering process in September, which illustrates just how difficult it will be to initiate any steps toward normalization of monetary policy. • Delaying the decision to taper the asset purchase program without clear and significant departures from prior guidelines suggested the FOMC was changing the goalposts and deviating from June's forward guidance. Because the FOMC failed to adjust the pace of asset purchases at that meeting, he believes the FOMC undermines the credibility of its own forward guidance. • President Plosser expects growth of around 3 percent in 2014. He expects unemployment rates near 7 percent by the end of this year or early next year and close to 6.25 percent by the end of 2014. Inflation expectations will be relatively stable, and inflation will move up toward the FOMC target of 2 percent over the next year. • President Plosser notes that while some of the decline in labor force participation has been a result of transitory factors, the labor markets are also adjusting to longer-term structural adjustments driven by demographics and technological advancements. Monetary policy would be ineffective in counteracting such structural trends – and it should not be used to try to do so.