FOMC: Explicações de um Dissidente

Muito interessante o discurso de Narayana Kocherlakota, presidente do FED de Minneapolis, publicado no site da instituição, sobre a condução do FED durante a crise e as perspectivas futuras de ação do FOMC. O discurso é especialmente relevante por apresentar, de forma clara e transparente, os motivos que levaram Kocherlakota a ser um dos dissidentes da última reunião do COPOM de lá. Como registro histórico, a decisão de "warrant exceptionally low levels for the federal funds rate at least through mid-2013" foi a que gerou a maior divisão nos últimos 20 anos de história de reuniões do FOMC, com três membros do comitê discordando do resultado final.

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Ainda que eu discorde da opinião de Kocherlakota sobre as perspectivas da economia americana e, por consequência, do seu voto na reunião, o texto é uma aula sobre como pensa um banqueiro central. Aos principais tópicos:

1. A relação entre transparência das decisões e a eficiência da política monetária:

   "[I]t is not enough to have an objective — the Federal Reserve must also communicate that objective clearly. That communication serves to anchor medium- and long-term inflationary expectations. Put another way, without clear communication of objectives, the public can only guess at the intentions of the FOMC. Inflationary expectations and inflation itself will inevitably end up fluctuating—and possibly by a lot. As I’ll discuss later, it is possible to undo these shifts in expectations, but only at significant economic cost."

2. O banco central como formador de expectativas nos agentes inclusive quando toma ações, e um pouco do que o FT chamou de "Jedi Economics" (sim, o mercado consegue ser engraçado em suas analogias):

   "I’ve been emphasizing the importance of communication — and communication matters greatly. But, ultimately, the public’s beliefs about the FOMC’s inflation objective will also depend on inflationary outcomes. If annual inflation averages less than 1.5 percent for more than three or four years, onlookers will begin to suspect that the FOMC’s true objective for inflation is lower than its declared “two percent or a bit under.” Correspondingly, if inflation is persistently higher than 2 percent, then the public will begin to believe that the FOMC’s true objective for inflation is higher than 2 percent. In either case, inflation expectations could become unmoored, and the FOMC could lose control of inflation itself. Communication can only be effective if the FOMC also retains credibility." (grifos no original)

3. A "regra de Taylor" na cabeça e a justificativa do voto:

   "How did the FOMC achieve its success over the past three and a half years with regard to price stability? The answer, I believe, is that the FOMC consistently made choices in response to changes in short-term economic conditions that were designed to support its medium-term objectives. Getting these choices right is certainly more of an art than a science. With that said, economists have suggested a number of rules that tell central banks how to respond to changes in economic conditions so as to keep inflation near some target level. (...) Suppose the FOMC observes an increase in available measures of inflationary pressures and a decrease in labor market slack — that is, the gap between maximum employment and observed employment. Then many monetary policy rules would recommend that the FOMC not ease policy further and in fact consider reducing the level of monetary policy accommodation. That recommendation—don’t ease further if you’re doing better on your mandates — makes sense to me." (grifos no original)

   Depois de discutir um pouco dos números da economia entre as duas reuniões do FOMC e declarar abertamente as suas projeções sobre o núcleo de inflação e o desemprego para os próximos anos, Kocherlakota dá o seu veredito:

   "So, measures of past and forecasts of future inflationary pressures were higher in August than at the time of the FOMC’s last major policy move in November. Measures of current labor market slack and expectations of future labor market slack were smaller in August. The monetary policy rules that I described earlier would suggest, again, “Don’t ease further if you’re doing better on your mandates.” Indeed, they’d recommend that the level of policy accommodation be reduced. Instead, at its August meeting, the FOMC decided to adopt a more accommodative policy stance. From March 2009 through June 2011, the FOMC statement said that the Committee expected to keep interest rates extraordinarily low for an “extended period,” which was generally interpreted as meaning “at least for two or three meetings.” In August 2011, the FOMC changed its statement to say that it now expected to keep interest rates extraordinarily low for at least 16 meetings. Given what I’ve said, it is not surprising that I dissented from this decision."

O discurso ainda fala brevemente da interpretação moderna da economia para o trade-off entre inflação e crescimento, a relação entre emprego e crescimento do produto (para justificar o uso do desemprego como medida da sua "regra" de decisão), uma visão positiva da atuação do FED durante a crise e um agradecimento especial a Ben Bernanke nas suas conclusões, que transcrevo:

"I mentioned that I dissented from the Committee’s last decision in August. Two other presidents dissented — and there have not been as many dissents at one meeting in nearly 20 years. (...) Chairman Bernanke strongly welcomes the airing of disparate views within the meeting. He clearly believes — as I do — that the United States has a decentralized central bank because we will get better monetary policy if decision-making is grounded in a wide range of views. I think that the chairman should be applauded for this approach to policymaking."

Abraços!