Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren reiterated on Saturday that it’s time to bring interest rate back to “normal” level. He told reporters after an economic conference that “here is upward pressure on inflation, and given that we are already at 2 percent, labor markets are already tight … that is going to be a situation where we start persistently having inflation above what our target is.” And he noted, “there is an argument to normalize policy and probably be mildly restrictive.”
Rosengren also added that recent job and growth data were increasingly “inconsistent” with the estimates of a low neutral rate. And, “it would not surprise me at all if the committee estimates (on neutral rate) … go up over time.” And, if those estimates rise, “you would expect the path to move as well.”
