Fed’s Evans Says Rate Rise Should Wait Amid Economic Uncertainty

Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago President Charles Evans, who votes on policy this year, said in a research paper that interest rates should remain near zero for longer amid “substantial uncertainty” about inflation and employment.

“The biggest risk we face today is prematurely engineering restrictive monetary conditions,” Evans wrote in a paper released Thursday that was co-written with reserve bank researchers Jonas Fisher, Francois Gourio and Spencer Krane. They said the risk of premature liftoff exceeds the risk of delaying too long, and that the central bank’s credibility will suffer if officials are forced to backtrack on policy.