Bernanke Ups Fed Transparency

The Federal Reserve will issue more detailed reports  twice as often, Ben Bernanke announced today. Starting next Tuesday, the Fed will release projections for inflation, GDP, and unemployment four times a year, accompanied by a “narrative” telling investors what the Fed is thinking. Bernanke also said he’d be looking at overall inflation from now on, not just the gas- and food-free core rate.

While Bernanke said core inflation was still a useful statistic, “ultimately, households and businesses care about the overall...rate.” The new reports stop short of providing an explicit inflation target, as several other countries’ central banks do. Bernanke is a known fan of the practice, but said it wasn’t “suited to the Federal Reserve’s mandate.” (More Federal Reserve stories.)