Suppose that in early February a crystal ball told you that the US economy was about to be locked down for a month to prevent a big outbreak of Covid-19. That time would be used to implement an aggressive policy of test/trace/isolate plus widespread mask wearing. With just a few dozen cases, it would be possible to isolate all the infected, as in places like New Zealand. You might think the one month lockdown was good news.
Now suppose instead that your crystal ball suggested that there would be a 5-year lockdown. Now your reaction might be fear. “Wow, that would only happen if the epidemic really got out of control.”
Now let’s switch to monetary policy. Suppose the Covid epidemic causes the Fed to temporarily slash rates to zero. You might think this was good news, monetary stimulus to offset the decline in nominal spending.
Now suppose instead that you saw this Bloomberg headline:
Fed Seen Holding Rates at Zero for Five Years in New Policy
The new approach could be unveiled as soon as next month.
How do you react? I worry that this means the economy is likely to be very weak for the next 5 years—not at all what I hoped for.
Now suppose you have been calling for level targeting and the Fed instead opts for “average inflation targeting”. Also assume the market reacts to the Fed’s announcement with market inflation forecasts of well below 2% for as far as the eye can see. Does that make you optimistic?
I do think that average inflation targeting would be a tiny step forward. But it’s also far more discretionary than level targeting, and hence it depends much more on implementation. Unlike with price level targeting, we don’t know how it will work.
Unfortunately, if the policy lacks credibility it’s not of much use. So I expect any gains from the policy to be small. The good news is that it’s one step toward price level targeting, and price level targeting would be a step toward NGDP level targeting.