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Class Year

2015

Document Type

Article

Abstract

Good afternoon everyone and thank you for having us here today. Though the recession began in 2007 and officially ended in 2009, recovery has been painfully slow. GDP growth has been insufficient to close the output gap, there continues to be slack in the labor market and inflation has stabilized below the Federal Reserve percent target. We are not meeting our dual mandate of full employment and stable prices even 6 years after the end of the recession. Despite some signs of strengthening in the economy during the past year, we do not believe that economy is on a self-sustaining path of recovery. Furthermore, the monetary policy actions taken by the Fed thus far to pull us out of the Great Recession have been insufficient. We propose a substantial strengthening of the our forward guidance; specifically, a commitment not to raise the federal funds rate until nominal GDP has returned to a path that we consider consistent with the dual mandate. [excerpt]

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