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Session 30: Too Much Information? The Art of Communication and Monetary Policy
In keeping with the conference theme of how information can be assembled, used, and misused, this panel of central bankers and/or central bank watchers will discuss their views on how, and how much, a central bank should comment on the future course of monetary policy.
Presentations
Brian Sack: Fed Communications: Talk the Talk
John Berry's column after the session (at Bloomberg)
Links of Interest
John Berry's Columns at Bloomberg
Macroeconomic Advisers Monetary Policy Insights
Speakers
Carl Tannenbaum
NABE Vice President and Chief Economist
La Salle Bank/ABN AMRO N.A.
Carl Tannenbaum is the Chief Economist for LaSalle Bank Corporation, a $100 billion organization centered in Chicago. LaSalle is an affiliate of the ABN AMRO Bank of Holland, one of the world’s largest financial institutions.
In this capacity, Carl provides internal and external briefings on business conditions. He publishes weekly, monthly, and quarterly commentary for distribution to the bank's customers. He serves as a quote contact for a number of publications and provides commentary on business issues for CNBC, CNN, and other media outlets.
Mr. Tannenbaum is a member of the Blue Chip panel of economic forecasters and is Vice President of the National Association for Business Economics. In addition to his economic duties, Carl is also responsible for measuring the organization’s interest rate risk and monitoring its investment portfolio.
Mr. Tannenbaum has been with the organization for twenty-two years. He holds an M.B.A. and a B.A. in finance and economics from the University of Chicago.
John M. Berry
Columnist
Bloomberg News
After covering the Federal Reserve and the U.S. economy for the Washington Post for 25 years, Berry became a columnist for Bloomberg News in January 2004. His stories about the Fed have frequently moved financial markets because he is widely recognized for his ability to interpret and explain the thinking of Federal Reserve officials, and for his knowledge of the American economy.
Before joining the Washington Post in 1979, he covered the Fed and the economy in Washington for Business Week, Time Magazine and Forbes Magazine, for which he was Washington bureau chief.
Berry began his journalism career with his hometown newspaper, the Johnson City (Tenn.) Press-Chronicle, after attending Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., where he was an economics major. From 1962 until 1965, he was a reporter and editor at the Providence (R.I.) Journal.
His work has also appeared in the International Herald-Tribune, Fortune, International Economy, Financier, Central Banking and other American and foreign publications.
Brian Sack
Senior Economist
Macroeconomic Advisers, LLC
Brian Sack is Senior Economist at Macroeconomic Advisers. He collaborates with Dr. Meyer on all aspects of Monetary Policy Insights. Dr. Sack will also be developing a number of additional products for MPI clients that focus on the implications of monetary policy developments for the fixed income markets as well as the impact of economic developments on monetary policy.
Dr. Sack joined the staff of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve in 1997 and became the head of the Monetary and Financial Market Analysis section in 2003. In that capacity, he directed the Federal Reserve Boards analysis of various segments of U.S. fixed-income markets, including Treasuries, swaps, and interest rate futures. Those efforts focused on interpreting and predicting the influence of economic and monetary policy developments on the yield curve and other asset prices, as well as on extracting information from market prices that was relevant for policy decisions.
Dr. Sacks position at the Board placed him as a crucial contributor to the staffs support of the FOMC. He and his section worked extensively on the Greenbook and the Bluebook prepared by the staff, and on numerous other documents addressing relevant topics for FOMC decisions. Dr. Sack worked closely with FOMC members, including extensive research projects with Governor Kohn and Governor Bernanke.
Dr. Sack has published a number of research papers on issues related to monetary policy decisions and the fixed income markets. Specific topics have included estimating monetary policy rules, measuring the effects of FOMC communications, assessing the impact of monetary policy decisions on asset prices, and evaluating the behavior of Treasury inflation-indexed debt. His papers have appeared in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Journal of Monetary Economics, the Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking, the Journal of Fixed Income, and the Journal of Futures Markets. Dr. Sacks research has been cited numerous times in the financial press, including the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, and BusinessWeek. Dr. Sack received a Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1997.
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