Analyst: It is not surprising that Federal Reserve officials have differing views on the neutral interest rate
ChainCatcher news, in this week's speech, Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee and Federal Reserve Governor Michelle Bowman expressed starkly different views on the theoretical neutral interest rate level. The neutral interest rate refers to the rate level that allows the Fed's various economic goals to be balanced.
Goolsbee emphasized that the Fed still needs to lower interest rates further to reach this level—he described this rate as "far below where we currently are." Meanwhile, Bowman stated, "We may be closer to a neutral policy stance than we currently think." Will Compernolle of FHN Financial pointed out that given the range of neutral interest rates estimated anonymously by Fed officials in September's forecast was between 2.375% and 3.75%, such a divergence is not surprising.