Working Papers

Academic economists have perennially made arguments for the conduct of monetary policy constrained by an explicit rule. These arguments have gone nowhere. This paper advances a proposal to clarify Fed objectives and strategy in order to facilitate discussion leading to consensus over a desirable rule. The essence of the proposal is to replace the forecasts of the individual participants at FOMC meetings now contained in the Summary of Economic Projections with a consensus FOMC forecast accompanied by commentary on the strategy for monetary policy underlying the forecast.