IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/soecon/v91y2025i4p1391-1403.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The fate of FAIT: Salvaging the Fed's framework

Author

Listed:
  • David Beckworth
  • Patrick J. Horan

Abstract

The Federal Reserve's transition to a flexible average inflation targeting (FAIT) framework in 2020 has come under intense scrutiny, given its failure to prevent the recent inflation surge. These developments are the result of both a public misunderstanding about how FAIT works and the challenges created by the asymmetric design of the framework. As a result, some observers have called on the Federal Reserve to abandon FAIT and return to its previous framework. This paper, however, argues that FAIT should not be abandoned but improved upon by applying symmetry to its makeup policy and treatment of supply shocks. Doing so would give FAIT the properties of a nominal GDP‐level target. This paper calls this proposed framework FAIT‐N and shows how to operationalize it using a measure called the NGDP gap.

Suggested Citation

  • David Beckworth & Patrick J. Horan, 2025. "The fate of FAIT: Salvaging the Fed's framework," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 91(4), pages 1391-1403, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:soecon:v:91:y:2025:i:4:p:1391-1403
    DOI: 10.1002/soej.12724
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/soej.12724
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/soej.12724?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thomas M. Mertens & John C. Williams, 2019. "Monetary Policy Frameworks and the Effective Lower Bound on Interest Rates," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 109, pages 427-432, May.
    2. Beckworth, David, 2019. "Facts, Fears, and Functionality of NGDP Level Targeting: A Guide to a Popular Framework for Monetary Policy," Annals of Computational Economics, George Mason University, Mercatus Center, October.
    3. Mark Gertler & Jordi Gali & Richard Clarida, 1999. "The Science of Monetary Policy: A New Keynesian Perspective," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(4), pages 1661-1707, December.
    4. Lars E O Svensson, 2005. "Monetary Policy with Judgment: Forecast Targeting," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 1(1), May.
    5. D’Amico, Stefania & Kim, Don H. & Wei, Min, 2018. "Tips from TIPS: The Informational Content of Treasury Inflation-Protected Security Prices," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 53(1), pages 395-436, February.
    6. McCallum, Bennett T., 1999. "Issues in the design of monetary policy rules," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 23, pages 1483-1530, Elsevier.
    7. David Reifschneider & David Wilcox, 2019. "Average Inflation Targeting Would Be a Weak Tool for the Fed to Deal with Recession and Chronic Low Inflation," Policy Briefs PB19-16, Peterson Institute for International Economics.
    8. Martinez, Andrew & Schibuola, Alex, 2021. "The Expectations Gap: An Alternative Measure of Economic Slack," Working Papers 11284, George Mason University, Mercatus Center.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bryan P. Cutsinger & William J. Luther, 2025. "Symposium introduction: Reviewing the Federal Reserve's framework," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 91(4), pages 1213-1228, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Beckworth, David & Horan, Patrick J., 2024. "A two-for-one deal: Targeting nominal GDP to create a supply-shock robust inflation target," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 46(6), pages 1071-1089.
    2. Beckworth, David & Horan, Patrick, 2022. "The Fate of FAIT: Salvaging the Fed’s Framework," Working Papers 10840, George Mason University, Mercatus Center.
    3. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2007_032 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Stefano Eusepi & Bruce Preston, 2008. "Stabilizing Expectations under Monetary and Fiscal Policy Coordination," NBER Working Papers 14391, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Marvin Goodfriend, 2004. "Monetary policy in the new neoclassical synthesis : a primer," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, vol. 90(Sum), pages 21-45.
    6. George W. Evans & Seppo Honkapohja, 2009. "Robust Learning Stability with Operational Monetary Policy Rules," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel & Carl E. Walsh & Norman Loayza (Series Editor) & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel (Series (ed.),Monetary Policy under Uncertainty and Learning, edition 1, volume 13, chapter 5, pages 145-170, Central Bank of Chile.
    7. Wollmershauser, Timo, 2006. "Should central banks react to exchange rate movements? An analysis of the robustness of simple policy rules under exchange rate uncertainty," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 493-519, September.
    8. Coenen, Gunter & Wieland, Volker, 2005. "A small estimated euro area model with rational expectations and nominal rigidities," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(5), pages 1081-1104, July.
    9. Bennett T. McCallum & Edward Nelson, 2004. "Timeless perspective vs. discretionary monetary policy in forward-looking models," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 86(Mar), pages 43-56.
    10. Athanasios Orphanides, 2025. "Enhancing resilience with natural growth targeting," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 91(4), pages 1420-1439, April.
    11. William Branch & George Evans, 2011. "Monetary policy and heterogeneous expectations," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 47(2), pages 365-393, June.
    12. Laura Coroneo & Valentina Corradi & Paulo Santos Monteiro, 2018. "Testing for optimal monetary policy via moment inequalities," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(6), pages 780-796, September.
    13. Bokor, László, 2007. "Optimality criteria of hybrid inflation-price level targeting," MPRA Paper 10278, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Jul 2008.
    14. Bullard, James & Mitra, Kaushik, 2002. "Learning about monetary policy rules," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(6), pages 1105-1129, September.
    15. Glenn D. Rudebusch, 2002. "Assessing Nominal Income Rules for Monetary Policy with Model and Data Uncertainty," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(479), pages 402-432, April.
    16. Jordi Galí & J. David López Salido & Javier Vallés, 2003. "Rule-of-thumb consumers and the design of interest rate rules," Working Papers 0320, Banco de España.
    17. Mash, Richard, 2002. "New Keynesian Microfoundations Revisited: A Generalised Calvo-Taylor Model and the Desirability of Inflation vs. Price Level Targeting," Royal Economic Society Annual Conference 2002 138, Royal Economic Society.
    18. Patrick Lünnemann & Abdelaziz Rouabah, 2003. "Règle de Taylor: estimation et interprétation pour la zone euro et pour le Luxembourg," BCL working papers 9, Central Bank of Luxembourg.
    19. Nejla Adanur Aklan & Mehmet Nargelecekenler, 2008. "Taylor Rule in Practice: Evidence from Turkey," International Advances in Economic Research, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 14(2), pages 156-166, May.
    20. Brandyn Bok & Thomas M. Mertens & John C. Williams, 2022. "Macroeconomic Drivers and the Pricing of Uncertainty, Inflation, and Bonds," Working Paper Series 2022-06, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    21. GEORGE W. EVANS & BRUCE McGOUGH, 2007. "Optimal Constrained Interest-Rate Rules," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(6), pages 1335-1356, September.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:soecon:v:91:y:2025:i:4:p:1391-1403. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1002/(ISSN)2325-8012 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.