Fed's communications style scores well with analysts but not public

Through a tumultuous period of high inflation, aggressive interest rate hikes, and global instability, the U.S. Federal Reserve received relatively high marks for its monetary policy communications despite the thicket of uncertainty it has been navigating, according to a survey of academic and private-sector analysts released on Thursday. Responses from 31 academic and 24 private Fed watchers to questions posed by the Brookings Institution's Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy gave the U.S. central bank under Fed Chair Jerome Powell a median score of B+ for its overall communications, an important aspect of central bank operations that can make monetary policy itself more or less effective. The score was slightly lower than the median of A- the Powell-led Fed received in a 2020 survey conducted as the central bank rolled out a complicated series of programs in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.