By Michael S. Derby
NEW YORK, April 15 (Reuters) – Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland President Beth Hammack said on Wednesday that while she sees no imminent need for the central bank to change its interest rate target setting, it’s possible cuts or even hikes could lie ahead.
“I think that rates are in a good place,” Hammack said on CNBC. “My baseline is that we’re going to remain on hold for a good while, but I do think that there’s two-sided risk to rates,” she said, adding “there’s risk that we might need to be more accommodative or more restrictive, depending on how the data comes out.”
Hammack noted that the current period is decidedly challenging for the central bank, as the latest energy price shock tied to the Middle East war is coming on the back of an extended period of above-target inflation, which collectively makes choices about interest rate policy more difficult.
When it comes to how surging energy prices might affect the economy’s performance, the key issue is “how high are energy prices going to stay and for how long are they going to stay there,” Hammack said.
High energy prices could be “more inflationary,” but at the same time, “if it starts to impact consumers and their willingness to spend, that could mean that we see some impacts flow through in the growth numbers that could ultimately flow through into the employment numbers.”
She also said that while the Fed can often look through supply shocks as a temporary event, the current episode may be different.
“All of these successive supply shocks are hard to think about” in terms of Fed policy actions, she said. “When it’s coming on the back of already elevated inflation, it may not be the same as it would be had we been entering this period at low and stable inflation.”
For the Fed, “it’s a good time for us to stay patient and wait and see how the data flows through.”
Hammack is a voting member on the interest-rate setting Federal Open Market Committee this year and she has been among the central bank’s more hawkish policymakers for some time. She’s worried about the central bank’s persistent failure to achieve its 2% inflation target and believes that deserves to be its main policy focus.
The war started by President Donald Trump and Israel has roiled the global economy and obscured the Fed’s policy outlook. At its March policy meeting officials held their interest rate target range stable at between 3.5% and 3.75%, with officials penciling in a single cut later this year.
Fed officials have provided little guidance in recent comments about what will happen with interest rates as they look for evidence of the war’s impact. Meanwhile, market participants have oscillated between expectations of rate cuts and rate hikes.
In the interview, Hammack said the job market appears to be in balance and that expectations of future inflation appear contained. She also said that the extended period of above-target inflation has been particularly rough on the economy.
“We’ve been above that 2% goal over the past five years. Individuals have experienced a decade’s worth of inflation…in that time period,” Hammack said.
(Reporting by Michael S. Derby; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Andrea Ricci )
