Fed Forecasts: Financial Sport or Costly Distraction?

For some reason, the Fed continues to publish the Summary of Economic Projections (SEP), in which Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) members guess the trajectory of macroeconomic indicators like gross domestic product, the unemployment rate, and price inflation. They also take a stab at forecasting their own policy decisions over the next few years in what is known as the “dot plot” (figure 1).

Figure 1: FOMC participants’ assessments of appropriate monetary policy: Midpoint of target range or target level for the federal funds rate