WASHINGTON—Abrupt changes to the federal funds rate could stress the economy and financial markets, with steady and well-communicated increases preferable given the uncertainty about how hard and fast rate hikes will hit business and household spending, Kansas City Fed president Esther George said on Monday.
With inflation running at a 40-year high, “the case for continuing to remove policy accommodation is clear-cut,” George said in remarks prepared for delivery to a labor-management conference in Missouri.
But “the speed at which interest rates should rise … is an open question,” she said in remarks made as several of her colleagues have already endorsed a second consecutive three-quarter point increase at the upcoming July Fed meeting. George dissented against an increase of that size in June, preferring the half-point increase the public was expecting until the weekend before the meeting….