It is “too early” to say that the rates of the American central bank (Fed) will no longer rise, said Monday the vice-president of the institution, Philip Jefferson, who however showed himself in favor of a cautious approach. .
“It may be too early to say that we have tightened enough to return inflation to our 2.0% target,” Philip Jefferson said during a speech in Dallas, Texas, on the occasion of the annual meeting of the National Association for Business Economics (NABE).
And “restrictive monetary policy may be necessary for longer than expected to bring inflation down to 2%,” he added.
Mr. Jefferson nevertheless considered that it was necessary to “proceed with caution in assessing the extent of any additional policy tightening which might prove necessary”.
“We are in a sensitive period of risk management, where we must balance the risk of not having tightened monetary policy sufficiently with that of a policy that is too restrictive,” he detailed.
The president of the Dallas branch of the Fed, Lorie Logan, had also, a little earlier, estimated that rates could remain high for longer than expected.
“I anticipate that we will need continued restrictive financial conditions to bring inflation back to 2% in a timely manner and sustainably achieve our objectives of maximum employment and price stability,” she stressed to the same audience.
A Fed governor, Michelle Bowman, indicated on Saturday that the Fed would probably have to raise its rates again, to curb still high inflation, and while economic activity appears to be solid.
At its last meeting, on September 19 and 20, the Fed kept its main rate in the range of 5.25 to 5.50%, the highest level since 2001. Officials, however, signaled that they could raise them again by the end of the year.
The next meeting will take place on October 31 and November 1.
The PCE inflation index, favored by the Fed, advanced 3.5% year-on-year in August, reaccelerating for the second month in a row, due to the rise in energy prices.
Another measure of the rise in consumer prices, the CPI index, on which pensions are indexed, also started to rise again in August, at + 3.7% over one year. September data will be released on Thursday.