, Columnist
Yellen Needs to Make More Speeches
The world still doesn't know what the Fed thinks about Brexit, and that's not OK.
Use your words.
Photographer: Andrew Harrer/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
What does the U.S. Federal Reserve think about the repercussions of Britain's vote to leave the European Union? Amazingly, we still don’t really know -- and we might not get a proper chance to find out until August or September. This dearth of information illustrates an important flaw in the way the world's most powerful central bank communicates.
Fed officials give a lot of speeches, and many have addressed Brexit in recent weeks. But, as they always say, they don’t speak on behalf of the Federal Open Market Committee, the body charged with assessing the state of the economy and adjusting interest rates accordingly. So their words offer only a partial picture of the central bank's thinking -- and can even sow confusion.