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Speech
Statement from Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland President Beth M. Hammack regarding her vote at the Federal Open Market Committee’s December 17–18, 2024 meeting
The Federal Open Market Committee decided to lower the target range for the federal funds rate by 1/4 percentage point to 4-1/4 to 4-1/2 percent at the Committee’s December 17–18, 2024 meeting. Statement from Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland President Beth M. Hammack regarding her vote, released at 9:00 AM EST.
Speech
Lake Effect: Views from the Fourth District on the Economy and Monetary Policy
Remarks by Beth M. Hammack, President and Chief Executive Officer, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland at the City Club of Cleveland, Friday Forum, Cleveland, OH, December 6, 2024, 12:00 noon EST: Good afternoon. It’s an honor to join the ranks of speakers who have engaged with the City Club of Cleveland. I’m a fan of your mission to create conversations of consequence that help democracy thrive, and I hope to contribute to that tradition today. I look forward to your questions, in particular because understanding what’s on your minds is an important part of my job as Cleveland Fed ...
Speech
Show Me the Low Inflation
The Fed is focused on its mission to support the economy and financial system on behalf of the public. Right now, the economy is in a good place, and policy is calibrated to keep us here with healthy conditions in the labor market and continued downward pressure on inflation for a return to our 2 percent objective. We recognize that although the overall economic picture looks positive, there are families who are still struggling. At the Cleveland Fed, our teams are active in communities across the Fourth District, including Lexington, to help us better understand regional economic ...
Speech
Trading Places: My New View from Inside the Federal Reserve
In my remarks today, I will focus on a couple of financial market developments that are on my personal radar: the considerable growth in private credit and hedge fund leverage. For both, it’s incumbent on us to be mindful of the financial stability tradeoffs of allowing or curtailing these activities through regulation, because any time we try to fix one problem, we may end up creating another. This is what the economist Ed Kane termed the “regulatory dialectic.” The rules we set up through regulation have consequences; they provide financial institutions with incentives and choices in ...
Speech
Fed 101: Approaching Monetary Policy with Heart, Brains, and Courage
A critical part of my role as Cleveland Fed president is to understand what’s on the minds of District residents and businesses and how they are experiencing the economy. So I will encourage conversation by keeping these remarks brief and sharing a little bit about me, the Cleveland Fed, what we do, and my outlook for the economy and monetary policy.
Speech
The Federal Reserve’s Balance Sheet: Some Major League Questions
A third policy tool, one which usually does not garner the same attention as the first two, is the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet. While the balance sheet is often operating in the background, it has become a more active tool of policy since 2007. As we normalize the balance sheet in 2025, the FOMC faces a number of decisions, ranging from technical adjustments—such as slowing the pace of runoff at our last meeting—to more fundamental issues. In my remarks today, I will provide my perspective on several important issues regarding the balance sheet and raise some questions that I feel ...
Speech
The Outlook for the Economy and Monetary Policy
My thanks to the Hoover Institution for inviting me to speak on this esteemed panel. It’s great to be back at my alma mater. I am especially grateful that yesterday I was able to join the celebration in honor of John Taylor. When we experience uncertain economic times with a wide range of possible paths for the economy, simple policy rules provide a good starting point for assessing how monetary policy may wish to respond in different scenarios. The Cleveland Fed’s website has a section that looks at federal funds rate projections based on seven simple policy rules and multiple forecasts, ...