Williams Says Fed Thinking ‘Hard’ About Yield-Curve Control

Steve Matthews
May 27, 2020, 9:54 AM EDT

Federal Reserve Bank of New York President John Williams said policy makers are “thinking very hard” about targeting specific yields on Treasury securities as a way of ensuring borrowing costs stay at rock-bottom levels beyond keeping the benchmark interest rate near zero.

“Yield-curve control, which has now been used in a few other countries, is I think a tool that can complement -– potentially complement –- forward guidance and our other policy actions,” he said in an interview Wednesday on Bloomberg Television with Michael McKee and Jonathan Ferro. “So this is something that obviously we’re thinking very hard about. We’re analyzing not only what’s happened in other countries but also how that may work in the United States.”