The writer is president of Queens’ College, Cambridge, and an adviser to Allianz and Gramercy
It was not supposed to be this way. By now, the Federal Reserve should have been able to declare “mission accomplished”, closing the chapter on a period when US inflation ran higher and longer than it should have. In doing so, it could also have pointed to its success in avoiding the economic “pain” it warned about in August 2022 in tackling rising prices.
Instead, the Fed will have to navigate a summer that will see both elements of its twin objectives — low inflation and maximum employment — threatened. It will continue to fend off attacks from the White House, especially now it has signalled that any potential rate cut this year is unlikely to materialise until September at the earliest. And it is committed this year to rolling out a new monetary policy framework that is likely to remind many people of the major deficiencies in the existing one.