Fed May Need to Hike to 6.5% to Cool Prices, Study Says

  • Wall Street economists, academics write paper for conference
  • Taming inflation without ‘mild recession’ seen as doubtful

The Marriner S. Eccles Federal Reserve building in Washington, DC.

Photographer: Samuel Corum/Bloomberg
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Federal Reserve officials may need to raise interest rates as high as 6.5% to defeat inflation, according to new research that was sharply critical of the central bank’s initially slow response to rising prices.

In a paper presented Friday at a conference in New York, a quintet of Wall Street economists and academics argue that policymakers still have an overly-optimistic outlook and they will need to inflict some economic pain to get prices under control.