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Working Paper
The Emergence of Forward Guidance As a Monetary Policy Tool
Forward guidance—the issuance by a central bank of public statements concerning the likely future settings of its policy instruments—is widely regarded as a new tool of monetary policy. The analysis in this paper shows that Federal Reserve policymakers from the 1950s onward actually accepted the premises of forward guidance: the notion that longer-term interest rates are key yields in aggregate spending decisions; and the proposition that indications of intentions regarding future short-term interest rate policy can affect longer-term rates. Over the same period, they were nevertheless ...